UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   SAN  DIEGO 


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I       UNIVERSITY  OF 
I  CALIFORNIA 

I       SAN  DIEGO 


3 


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LET  US  HAVE   PEACE 


AND    OTHER   ADDRESSES 


BY 


DARWIN    P.  KINGSLEY 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE 
NEW  YORK  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 


<f 


■<y 


NEW    YORK 

PUBLISHED   BY  THE  COMPANY 
1919 


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CONTENTS 

Page 

Let  Us  Have  Peace 13 

Human  Brotherhood 20 

Life  Insurance  and  The  Century's  Opportunity 27 

A  Man's  a  Man  For  A'  That 38 

Safety  First  Convention  in  Detroit 50 

Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty 63 

The  Year  1916 76 

The  TrilogA'  of  Democracy 79 

The  United  EngHsh  Nations 96 

The  Declaration  of  1776  and  The  Flag 121 

Nineteen  Seventeen  and  Peace 137 

The  Evil  That  Men  Do  Lives  After  Them 140 

Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation 148 

Why  We  ShaU  Fight 169 

A  Knock  at  the  Door 178 

Belgium 185 

Peace 191 

A  New  Charter  of  Liberty 194 

Woodrow  Wilson,  Prophet 217 

A  Political  Superstition 238 

What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory? 253 

Thanksgiving 267 

The  Proposed  League  of  Nations 270 

Peace  at  Last 288 

Let  the  Trumpet  Sound 291 

Shakespeariana 305 

Some  JefFersonian  Maxims 331 

Life  Insurance  and  The  Supreme  Purpose 342 

Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence 358 

An  Open  Letter 376 

The  Sin  of  The  Church 386 

The  Relations  Between  American  Life  Insurance  and  American 

Railroads 394 

President  Kingsley's  Stewardship 409 

Memorial  to  John  Purroy  Mitchel 414 

Japan  Society 417 

On  Taking  the  Chair  as  President  of  the  Seniors'  Golf  Association  425 

Falstaff's  Defense  of  Age 428 

The  American  Museum  of  Golfing  Antiquities 432 

In  Praise  of  Age 436 


DEDICATED 

TO  THE  IMMORTAL  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 


FOREWORD 


The  addresses  in  this  volume  which  discuss  war  and 
peace  and  what  seems  to  me  to  be  an  adequate  post- 
bellum  program,  are  printed  substantially  in  the  order 
of  delivery. 

This  order  is  followed  not  because  it  shows  my 
reaction  to  the  war  in  its  various  phases,  but  because 
it  may  show  the  reaction  of  the  average  American 
citizen  to  the  facts  as  they  developed  both  before  and 
after  we  entered  the  great  struggle  in  Europe. 

We  traveled  far  between  August  1,  1914,  and 
April  6,  1917.  To  give  up  our  long  settled  habits 
of  life  and  thought,  to  abandon  our  belief  that  wars, 
for  us  at  least,  were  a  part  of  a  barbarous  past  and 
not  to  be  repeated,  was  spiritually  and  mentally  the 
largest  task  we  had  ever  undertaken. 

Then  to  take  up  the  affirmative  side:  to  disrupt 
all  the  normal  relations  of  life,  to  call  all  our  youth 
and  young  manhood  to  the  colors,  to  send  them  three 
thousand  miles  overseas, — involved  changes  that  were 
revolutionary.  The  mind  that  finally  found  expression 
at  Chateau  Thierry  and  in  the  Argonne  represented 
a  people  separated  by  an  almost  unbelievable  distance 
from  the  same  people  on  August  1,  1914. 

How  small  the  world!  How  interlocked  its  peoples! 
Little  we  knew  and  less  we  cared  about  Sarejevo  in 
1914;  but  a  pistol  shot  fired  there  in  June  of  that  year 
lighted  a  mine  which  has  well  nigh  blown  civilization 
into  unrelated  bits. 


As  I  read  these  addresses  again  I  see  as  I  did  not  at 
the  time  of  their  dehvery  that  the  central  thought  always 
struggling  for  expression  was:  What  is  the  remedy? 

That  query  first  took  form  in  "Democracy  vs.  Sov- 
ereignty", the  Chamber  of  Commerce  address  in 
November,  1915.  It  was  repeated  in  substantially 
every  later  address.  I  find,  too,  that  there  are  repeti- 
tions in  historical  citations,  in  figures  of  speech,  in 
many  things  that  would  be  absent  if  I  had  planned  in 
advance  to  put  these  addresses  into  book  form.  These 
blemishes  could  not  well  be  removed  without  too  much 
editing,  and  so  the}'  remain. 

Now  we  face  squarely  the  problems  that  had  been 
inexorably  taking  form  long  before  the  day  the  Hun 
first  outraged  Belgium. 

The  address  called  "What  Shall  We  Do  With  Vic- 
tory?" states  the  great  problem  and  suggests  a  plan 
for  its  solution.  The  men  who  now  control  inter- 
national suggestion  offer  a  Plan — called  a  League  of 
Nations,  and  a  Constitution  for  the  proposed  League 
has  formally  been  adopted  by  the  Paris  Peace  Congress 
and  submitted  to  the  Nations  of  the  world. 

Analysis  of  the  Plan  proposed  reveals  striking 
similarities  between  it  and  our  Articles  of  Confedera- 
tion and  Perpetual  Union  finally  adopted  in  1781. 

Apparently  the  political  leaders  of  the  world  have 
learned  nothing  in  a  hundred  years.  The  democracies  of 
1919  are  in  effect  controlled  by  the  same  impulses,  the 
same  fears  that  controlled  the  autocracies  of  1815.  With 
the  agony  of  this  war  still  lying  heavily  on  the  heart 
of  the  world,  with  a  warning  cry  coming  up  from  the 
plain  peoples  of  all  the  earth,  with  Russia  in  chaos 
not  so  much  because  her  people  hated  the  old  order  as 


because  they  hated  war,  with  the  glorious  example  of 
our  fathers'  unprecedented  achievement  in  1787-9, 
when  they  organized  a  Nation  from  Thirteen  warring 
States,  the  Peace  Delegates  present  a  document  that 
in  philosophy  at  least  follows  the  instrument  which 
our  fathers  adopted  in  1781  and  abandoned  in  1789, 
and  abandoned  in  order  to  save  their  liberties. 

On  the  theory  that  every  citizen  should  encourage 
any  serious  attempt  to  better  international  conditions, 
it  is  not  pleasant  to  criticise  this  instrument. 

In  my  opinion  the  League  proposed  will  produce  no 
lasting  benefit,  unless  the  confusion  into  which  it  must 
lead  shall  compel  the  United  States,  the  British  Empire 
and  France  finally  to  brush  it  aside  as  inherently 
artificial  and  necessarily  impotent.  This  would  not 
only  create  an  opportunity  but  emphasize  the  neces- 
sity of  a  union  between  the  peoples  of  the  three 
powers  modeled  on  our  Federal  Constitution.  No 
structure  in  which  the  units  are  sovereignties  can  be 
other  than  artificial  and  a  house  of  cards.  History 
proves  this  to  the  hilt.  In  any  effective  union  between 
States  there  must  be  the  seeds  of  life  and  the  possibility 
of  natural  growth  and  that  can  be  achieved  only  when 
a  union  of  States  becomes  a  union  of  peoples. 

Let  us  hope,  as  the  Articles  of  Confederation  in  a 
way  prepared  the  Thirteen  States  for  the  Federal 
Constitution,  that  this  solemn  covenant  may  prepare 
the  way  for  an  instrument  that  shall  work  between  the 
nations  which  approve  it  the  political  miracle  wrought 
between  the  peoples  of  the  Western  Republic  by  the 
Charter  issued  from  Independence  Hall  in  1787. 

D.  P.   K. 

New  York,  June,  1919. 


^  ^  ^  'M  draper  ^  'i'  ^i- 


(Whatever  men's  faith  or  lack  of  faith,  whatever  their  conception  of  Omnipotence, 
all  men  pray  in  times  of  crisis.  Men  are  everywhere  praying  now.  The  men  of 
each  nation  pray  in  terms  of  their  own  ideals,  their  own  liistory,  their  own  suffering. 
Few  pray  aloud,  hut  all  pray.  The  prayers  of  our  own  people  translated  through  sub- 
conscious understanding,  lift  against  the  agony  of  Europe  a  great  antiphonal  which  says:) 


Hrj;i'  tfjc  people  of  tfjis  fortunate  lanb  to  cfjerigfj  tfje  ^nglo= 
^axon  tradition;  to  remember  iHagna  CJjarta  anli  3^ot)n 
J^ampben  anb  (S^liber  Cromtoell;  to  repeat  anb  unberstanb 
tlje  l^ill  of  i\igt)ts  anb  tt)e  declaration  of  3nbepenbence; 

Help  us  to  re=bi?uali^e  tJje  jUinute  iHen  anb  to  fj^ar  again 
tfje  notes  of  ICifaertp  J!^ell;  -h^^^^h^^'h^^-i-'i- 

IlKLJ*  us  to  feel  some  of  tlje  agonp  tfjat  seareb  tfje  souls  of 
(George  ISastjington  anb  !3faral)am  ^Lincoln; 

Help  us  to  gibe  ebents  anb  men  anb  nations  tfjeir  just  balue; 
to  be  brabe  enouglj  not  to  blinfe  facts;  to  be  unselfisb  enougb 
to  gibe  material  Success  its  just  balue;  to  see  clearlp,  to 
tijinfe  logicallp;     -i-  ^  ^  -f  4^  *  ►!«  4-    i   ^ 

HELJ'  us  to  fenob)  tprannp  toben  toe  see  it  anb  to  bate  it, 
'^     anb  especially  i)dp  us  not  to  loofe  atoap  toben  it  confronts  us; 

Help  us  to  fenoto  toben  bwnian  libertp  is  in  banger  anb  to 
see  tofjerein  tbe  banger  lies;  'i''h'h>i''i''i'>b'i''i-'i''i- 

Help  us,  toben  tbe  bour  comes,  to  strifee  quicfelp  anb  migbt= 
ilp  in  its  befense,  eben  tbougb  selfisbness  anb  batreb  of  toar 
tooulb  bolb  us  back;  Wit  bate  toar;  mafee  our  \)att  groto;  ^ut 
make  us  lobe  libertp  so  utterlp,  so  unberstanbinglp,  so  unsel= 
fisblp,  tbat  not  eben  toar  anb  its  borrors  can  be  as  bibeous  as 
tbe  front  of  tprannp;  i\efresb  our  courage  tbrougb  memories 
of  1776  anb  1865;    ►{.►{.^^►^.►^►i.vj.^j-.  +  + 

SA^E  I  Hi  ^\it^  are  noto  betoilbereb,  faUnbeb, 

anb  cruellp  beceibeb;  tbep  are  killing  eacb  otber  h^  millions 
anb  tbep  knoto  not  tobat  tljepbo;  ^^.^.^^^q.^.^. 

us  break  boton  tbe  toalls  of  prejubice  anb  misunber= 
stanbing  anb  bate  tobicb  bibibe  ti)c  sons  of  men;  ^ut  sboto 
us  also  tbe  better  toap;  sboto  us  boto  to  persuabe  men,  boto  to 
teacb  tbem  brotberboob;  sboto  us  boto  to  keep  our  inbibibualitp 
anb  pet  keep  tbe  peace.  Cibilijation  is  noto  toitbout  form  anb 
boib  anb  barkness  rests  ober  it: 

\r  u  11  us  boto  tbe  spirit  of  buman  brotberboob  map  penetrate 
ti)t  barkness  anb  faanisb  it,  eben  as  in  tbe  ancient  faitb  of  tbe 
J^ebretoS— tbe  Spirit  of  (Sob  mobeb  upon  tbe  face  of  tbe  toaters 
anbsaib:  "  HettberebeXigbt;  anb  tbere  toaslligbt"==;3men. 

January,  1910 


LET  US  HAVE  PEACE 


FROM  THE  JANUARY  1,  1915,  ISSUE  OF  THE  N.  Y.  TIMES 


CONDITION  and  a  Question  mark  the 
entrance  of  1915.  The  barbarism  of  na- 
tional sovereignty,  expressed  by  the  word 
"militarism",  which  has  brooded  over  Eu- 
ropean civihzation  for  forty  years,  has 
finally  asserted  itself.  Europe  has  gone  back  to  the 
age  and  the  methods  of  Attila.  The  mask  behind 
which  pohtical  necessity  and  hypocrisy  have  lurked 
has  been  dropped,  and  Europe  is  headed  God  knows 
whither.  From  this  condition  springs  the  Question, 
which  is: 

What  will  the  United  States  do  when  the  hour 
strikes?  Have  we  any  program?  Have  our  leaders 
any  program? 

Although  it  is  unprotected,  and  even  unestablished 
by  any  Constitutional  declaration,  nevertheless  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  world-citizenship,  and  this  Euro- 
pean horror  can  be  ended,  and  so  ended  that  it  will 
never  be  repeated,  only  by  a  definite  declaration  of 
that  citizenship. 

We  had  no  National  citizenship  as  a  legal  fact  when 
the  "Dred  Scott"  case  was  decided,  and  so  we  adopted 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  Now 
we  have  both  a  National  and  a  State  citizenship,  and 
we  have  learned  after  bitter  experience  that  in  the  first 

1  13 


14  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

lies  all  our  power,  all  our  future,  and,  more  important 
than  everything  else,  all  our  peace. 

We  have,  therefore,  in  our  own  Constitution  a  model 
for  the  world  in  this  particular  at  least,  viz:  a  citizen- 
ship which  reconciles  and  controls  all  the  conflicts  of 
lesser  citizenships.  If  we  finally  become  a  mediator 
between  the  European  belligerents,  what  folly  for  us 
to  attempt  a  mediation  which  aims  merely  to  patch  up 
the  usual  form  of  peace,  expressed  in  treaties,  which 
like  all  treaties  of  peace  hitherto  made,  will  merely 
express  the  terms  of  a  trade  between  powxr  and  neces- 
sity, a  compromise  with  the  powers  of  darkness,  hav- 
ing written  between  all  their  lines  the  certainty  of  a 
restoration  at  no  distant  date  of  the  rule  of  unlimited 
murder.  We  must  do  something  better  than  that,  and 
our  own  form  of  government  suggests  what  we  should 
do.  We  should  offer  to  mediate  on  the  basis  of  a 
larger  federation,  ultimately  world-embracing,  in  which 
this  larger  citizenship  shall  be  recognized.  In  this 
Federation  (not  Confederation)  the  central  authority 
should  operate  directly  on  the  individual  and  not  on 
the  nations  as  corporations.  The  Hague  Tribunal  is  a 
Confederation.  For  that  reason  amongst  others  it  has 
largely  failed. 

It  is  only  a  few  centuries  since  all  men  in  nearly  all 
the  relations  of  life  were  more  or  less  savages.  Now 
the  men  of  most  nations  are  gentle,  kindly,  charitable 
and  just  in  all  the  domestic  relations  of  life,  but  are  still 
savages  in  international  relations.  This  fact  brought 
on  the  European  war.  The  people  of  Europe  did  not 
want  the  war.  They  to-day  praj'  for  nothing  so  de- 
voutly as  that  this  war  may  speedily  end  and  that 
there  may  never  be  another.     How  may  they  and  we 


Let  Us  Have  Peace  15 

have  that  assurance?  We  can  have  it  as  soon  as  we 
are  wiUing  to  pay  the  price.  The  price,  curiously 
enough,  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  money  nor  in  Uves 
sacrificed  nor  in  the  abandonment  of  anything  that 
makes  for  real  national  greatness.  The  only  thing  to 
be  sacrificed  is  pride;  the  only  thing  to  be  destroyed  is 
the  cruel  lie  which  lives  in  the  existing  conception  of 
national  sovereignty.  National  sovereignty  as  now 
interpreted  denies  that  the  citizens  of  one  nation  are 
entitled  to  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  of 
other  nations,  \^Tiereas  the  affirmation  that  citizens 
of  each  State  are  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  of  other  States  is  one  of  the 
fundamental  and  one  of  the  greatest  declarations  of 
our  Constitution. 

Immediately  someone  says  "The  suggestion  is  Uto- 
pian; it  is  most  desirable,  but  utterly  impossible  of 
achievement."  But  is  it?  May  it  not  be  almost  as 
easy  and  as  simple  as  Columbus's  demonstration  of 
how  to  make  an  egg  stand  on  end?  With  the  example 
of  this  Republic  before  us,  in  which  forty-eight  States 
retain  their  local  government,  their  local  pride,  their 
local  institutions,  even  their  local  ambitions,  and  are 
nevertheless  happy,  progressive  and  reasonably  just  to 
each  other  under  the  aegis  of  the  Constitution,  is  it 
visionary  to  claim  that  the  same  thing  can  be  done  by 
a  dozen  nations,  if  the  peoples  of  those  nations  really 
want  it  done? 

And  it  must  be  done,  or  this  existing  horror  will 
spread  and  we  shall  be  its  next  victims.  Nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that. 

Our  obhgation  to  act  as  mediator,  when  the  time 
comes,  will  not  be  more  imperative  than  our  obligation 


16  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

to  present  this  plan.  For  us  to  mediate  on  any  other 
basis  would  be  an  admission  that  our  loud  assertions 
of  man's  inalienable  rights,  from  Washington  and  Jef- 
ferson to  Woodrow  Wilson,  have  been  httle  better  than 
mere  mouthings. 

There  are,  too,  practical  and  selfish  considerations. 
Unless  we  do  this,  and  unless  in  some  fashion  we 
persuade  Europe  to  accept  it,  we  must  ourselves  be- 
come a  great  military  and  naval  power.  As  LjTiian 
Abbott  said  recently:  "'We  cannot  assume  that  there 
are  no  burglars  in  New  York  and  therefore  disband 
the  poUce."  And  while  the  law  of  murder  continues 
to  rule  international  relations,  we  cannot  assume  that 
we  shall  never  become  its  \"ictims  or  that  we  shall 
never  practice  it. 

If  we  advance  such  a  program  and  fail,  we  fail..  The 
world  will  be  no  worse  for  our  failure.  But  if  we 
succeed,  if  we  partially  succeed,  no  such  service  to 
humanity  will  have  been  rendered  by  any  people  at 
any  time  since  ci^'ilized  government  began. 

President  Wilson  should  immediateh'  call  together 
representatives  of  all  civilized  and  neutral  nations  and 
with  them  formulate  a  plan.  The  warring  nations  of 
Europe  would  listen  to  any  plan  presented  from  such  a 
source;  and  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  suffering  peo- 
ples of  these  fighting  nations  would  make  an  unmis- 
takable response  to  such  a  proposal?  That  response 
might  almost  instantly  silence  every  gun.  Those  im- 
plements of  death  are  now  speaking  because  in  some 
fashion  the  people  of  the  belligerent  nations  have  con- 
sented that  they  shall  speak.  Once  establish  a  world- 
citizenship  under  such  a  Federation  and  the  people  of 
Germany  would  regard  war  on  France,  and  the  people 


Let  Us  Have  Peace  17 

of  France  would  regard  war  on  Germany,  with  the 
horror  that  would  seize  us  if  Xew  York  undertook  to 
make  war  on  Pennsylvania. 

Re\'iew  the  conditions  in  the  Thirteen  Colonies  in 
1787,  and  ask  if  it  would  probably  now  be  any  more 
difficult  to  establish  this  relationship  between  the  peo- 
ples of  the  world,  than  it  was  to  harmonize  the  hatreds 
and  jealousies  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies  under  the  con- 
ditions that  existed  a  centur}'  and  a  quarter  ago.  Then 
there  was  no  really  great  example:  it  was  indeed  the 
great  experiment.  The  Fathers  had  to  feel  their  way 
and  the}'  stumbled  badly.  We  had  to  fight  one  of  the 
most  unnecessary,  cruel  and  bloody  wars  in  all  history 
before  we  finally  estabhshed  this  citizenship.  It  is  now 
no  longer  a  mere  theory.  It  is  a  great  fact,  an  idea 
that  rules  a  continent,  that  controls  the  interstate 
relations  of  forty-eight  States  many  of  which  in  extent. 
and  a  few  in  population  and  wealth,  surpass  some  of 
the  warring  nations.  It  was  more  reasonable  in  1787 
to  say  that  it  could  not  be  done  by  the  Thirteen  Colo- 
nies than  it  is  in  1915  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  done  bj^ 
the  whole  ci\-ilized  world,  or  at  least  by  the  peoples  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world. 

It  ought  to  be  done  because  there  is  no  other  way  to 
an  honorable  and  enduring  peace:  it  can  be  done 
because  it  has  already  been  done  here. 

We  should  not  wait  for  the  opportunity  which  Fate 
may  or  may  not  thrust  directly  upon  us.  In  the  name 
of  our  own  Liberty  and  for  the  sake  of  suffering  man- 
kind, President  Wilson  should  act  at  once. 


18  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  Seattle  Daily  Times,  Thursday  Evening,  Jan.  28,  1915. 


A  NEW  "LOCKSLEY  HALL" 

When  Tennyson  wrote  "Locksley  Hall"  there  was  recorded  a 
vision  in  which  the  poet-prophet  foresaw  the  day  when  all  man- 
kind would  be  at  peace. 

The  thought  has  taken  powerful  root;  nor  can  it  be  extirpated 
by  the  mockerv'  in  1915  of  the  most  extensive  and  destructive  war- 
fare the  world  has  ever  seen. 

Alfred  Lord  Tennyson  has  been  dead  for  more  than  twenty 
years — but  the  great  idea  he  implanted  is  thriving  to-day. 

Its  latest  expression  has  come  from  the  pen  of  Darwin  P. 
Kingsley,  President  of  the  New  York  Life  Insurance  Company. 
In  lieu  of  his  usual  letter,  Januarys  1,  he  gave  forth  a  New  Year's 
disquisition  called  "Let  Us  Have  Peace". 

It  foresees  a  change  in  the  attitude  of  mankind — in  the  races  of 
the  world,  each  toward  all  the  others.  It  recognizes  that  the 
nationality  of  to-day  guarantees  a  citizen's  rights  up  to  national 
borders  and  beyond  that  point  there  is  an  extraterritorial  guar- 
antee based  on  so-called  International  Law. 

But  International  Law  is  merely  a  weak  and  worthy  attempt 
"to  soften  the  asperities  of  the  barbarism  which,  in  the  last  analysis, 
controls  international  relations". 

President  Kingslej'  takes  the  ground  that  there  is  now  such  a 
thing  as  "world-citizenship",  although  it  is  unprotected  and  even 
unestablished  by  any  constitutional  declaration;  and  he  declares 
that  th^  European  horror  can  be  ended — and  so  ended  that  it  wiU 
never  be  repeated — only  by  a  definite  declaration  of  that  citizen- 
ship. 

If  America  become  a  mediator,  what  folly  to  patch  up  the  usual 
form  of  peace,  in  treaties  expressing  merely  the  terms  of  a  trade 
between  power  and  necessity,  a  compromise  with  the  powers  of 
darkness,  with  the  certainty  of  restoring  at  no  distant  date  the 
rule  of  unlimited  murder! 

There  must  be  something  better — a  mediation  on  the  basis  of  a 
world-embracing  federation,  in  which  world-citizenship  shall  be 
recognized,  in  which  the  central  authority  shall  operate  directly  on 
the  individual  and  not  on  the  nations  as  corporations. 

The  Hague  Tribunal  is  confederation — not  a  federation;  and 
for  that  reason  it  has  largely  failed.     President  Kingsley  says: 

"It  is  only  a  few  centuries  since  all  men  in  nearly  all  the  rela- 
tions of  life  were  more  or  less  savages.  Now  men  are  gentle, 
kindh',  charitable  and  just  in  all  other  relations  of  life,  but  are  still 
savages  in  their  international  relations. 

"This  fact  brought  on  the  European  war.  The  people  of 
Europe  did  not  want  war.  They  to-day  pray  for  nothing  so  de- 
voutly as  that  this  war  may  speedily  end  and  that  there  may  never 
be  another. 

"How  can  they  and  we  have  that  assurance?  We  can  have  it 
as  soon  as  we  are  willing  to  pay  the  price.  The  price,  curiously 
enough,  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  money  nor  in  lives  sacrificed  nor 


Let  Us  Have  Peace  19 

in  the  abandonment  of  anything  that  makes  for  real  national 
greatness. 

"The  only  thing  to  be  sacrificed  is  pride;  the  only  thing  to  be 
destroyed  is  the  cruel  lie  which  lives  in  the  existing  conception  of 
national  sovereignty." 

Just  this  sacrifice  has  been  made  by  the  States  of  the  American 
Union.  World-citizenship,  once  established,  would  make  impos- 
sible a  war  between  France  and  Germany — with  the  same  horror 
that  would  seize  the  American  people  if  New  York  undertook  to 
make  war  on  Pennsylvania. 

World-citizenship  and  Federation  is  the  Vision  of  Kingsley. 
But  it  was  Tennyson  who  wrote : 

For  I  dipt  into  the  future,  far  as  human  eye  could  see. 
Saw  the  Vision  of  the  world,  and  all  the  wonder  that  would  be; 
Saw  the  heavens  filled  with  commerce,  argosies  of  magic  sails, 
Pilots  of  the  purple  twilight,  dropping  down  with  costly  bales; 
Heard  the  heavens  filled  with  shouting,  and  there  rained  a  ghastly 

dew 
From  the  nations'  airy  navies  grappling  in  the  central  blue ; 
Far  along  the  world-wide  whisper  of  the  south-wind  rushing  warm, 
With  the  standards  of  the  people  plunging  through  the  thunder 

storm; 
Till  the  war-drum  throbbed  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags  were 

furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  Man,  the  Federation  of  the  World! 

The  "airy  navies"  are  here.  Speed  the  day  when  World-Citi- 
zenship and  Federation  be  realized! 


HUMAN  BROTHERHOOD 
AN  UNEXPLORED  CONTINENT 


FROM  AMERICA  TO  JAPAN 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  MAY,  1915 


,   AVAGERY  and    Sovereignty,   pronounced 
"^  in  conversation,  strike  the  ear  not  dissim- 


ilarly. Savagery  represents  the  natural 
fj  action  of  human  units  in  a  lawless  world 

—  a  primitive  and  unci\'ilized  condition  of 
society.  Sovereignty  is  supposed  to  be  the  supreme 
expression  of  the  authority  that  regulates  organized 
and  responsible  states.  But,  as  there  are  many  so- 
called  sovereignties  in  the  world,  and  as  the  funda- 
mental claim  of  each  is  that  it  is  uncontrolled  and 
uncontrollable  by  any  other,  the  impact  of  these  un- 
yielding forces  on  each  other  has  created  a  new,  an 
irresponsible,  a  lawless  over-world.  This  over-world  is 
lawless  because  sovereignty,  being  itself  the  law,  can- 
not, except  by  physical  compulsion,  be  expected  to 
obey  any  law  but  its  own  and  such  limited  obligation 
as  may  be  expressed  in  treaties.  Under  the  pressure 
of  real  or  alleged  necessity,  treaties  are  frequently 
ignored  and  sometimes  openly  \'iolated.  The  result  is 
that  national  units,  in  the  exercise  of  their  highest 
functions,  operate  to-day  in  a  world  that  is  as  irre- 
sponsible as  the  world  of  savagery. 


Human  Brotherhood  21 

Savagery  and  Sovereignty,  therefore,  not  only  sound 
alike,  but  are  alike  in  the  social  conditions  which  they 
define.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  savagery 
in  a  thousand  years  together  was  not  guilty  of  such 
crimes  against  humanity  as  have  been  committed  by 
sovereignty  within  eight  months. 

The  abihty  of  any  state  speedily  to  enforce  justice  is 
universally  regarded  as  evidence  of  that  state's  title  to 
respect.  When  the  courts  of  any  country  become  in- 
efficient, revolution  is  near;  when  they  become  cor- 
rupt, anarchy  is  not  far  off.  No  country,  ha\'ing  either 
inefficient  or  corrupt  courts  or  no  courts  at  all,  can  be 
said  to  be  a  civilized  country.  In  the  over-world  of 
International  Relations  there  are  no  real  courts  be- 
cause there  is  no  central  authority,  and  naturally  there 
are  no  laws  which  can  be  effectively  enforced. 

Proximity  and  common  ideals  until  recent  times 
have  been  controUing  forces  in  the  creation  of  nationali- 
ties and  of  International  Relations.  International  Re- 
lations are  no  longer  the  result  of  geographic  proximity 
alone.  Peoples  are  near  each  other  now  who  may 
physically  be  far  apart  and  have  few  ideals  in  common. 
Proximity  and  International  Relations  have  been  ad- 
vanced by  increased  population  and  by  a  multiplica- 
tion of  nationalities,  but  proximity  through  the  service 
of  electricity  and  its  allies  has  outrun  proximity  through 
increasing  population,  and  to  such  a  degree  that  from 
the  standpoint  of  human  interest  there  are  no  foreign 
lands.  Japan  is  now  involved  in  a  war  the  physical 
center  of  which  is  at  her  antipodes. 

The  world  was  politically  several  diameters  larger 
when  the  American  Union  was  established  than  it  is 
now.     Any  word  uttered  to-day  by  a  person  in  au- 


22  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

thority  in  Petrograd,  or  Berlin,  or  Paris,  or  London,  is 
published  in  New  York  or  Tokio  before  '* to-day"  has 
dawned  in  those  cities.  The  Battle  of  New  Orleans 
was  fought  two  weeks  after  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  had  signed  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  because 
the  world  was  then  so  large.  That  tragedy  could  not 
happen  to-day,  because  the  world  is  so  small,  but  the 
barbarism  that  lies  back  of  that  tragedy  has  not  been 
touched. 

The  fundamental  concept  of  national  sovereignty  is 
self-sufficiency,  but  no  nation  is  now  self-sufficient. 
Evidence  of  that  lies  all  about  us.  Gradually  through 
the  years — swiftly  in  recent  years — through  the  instru- 
mentalities which  have  annihilated  time  and  distance, 
the  units  of  humanity  have  been  drawn  together;  but 
sovereignties,  as  such,  are  no  nearer  each  other  to-day 
than  they  were  centuries  ago.  The  impact  of  unyield- 
ing sovereignties  has  been  intensified  and  extended  by 
the  common  interest  which  inevitably  sprang  out  of  the 
closer  relations  between  the  units  of  humanity.  The 
new  world  thus  created  exhibits  all  the  characteristics 
of  a  state  which  has  no  efficient  courts  nor  any  certain 
way  of  administering  justice. 

We  have  tried  to  soften  the  asperities  of  this  lawless 
world  through  what  is  known  as  International  Law. 
We  suddenly  awoke  last  August  to  find  not  only  that 
the  land  was  lawless  but  that  it  was  the  natural  habitat 
of  revolution  and  of  utter  anarch}'. 

This  increasing,  unorganized,  lawless,  but  necessary 
relation  between  sovereignties  is  the  great  problem 
before  humanity  to-day.  It  is  greater  than  the  issues 
involved  in  the  European  war.  It  is  greater  because, 
unless  the  anarchism  of  this  over-world  is  stamped  out, 


Human  Brotherhood  23 

the  European  war  will  be  repeated  again  and  again 
with  greater  butchery  and  with  greater  shame.  All 
the  questions  which  trouble  the  statesmen  of  Japan 
and  America  lie  in  this  barbaric  over-zone.  All  the 
differences  leading  up  to  the  present  situation  in  Europe 
had  their  genesis  there.  By  patience,  forbearance,  and 
the  cultivation  of  a  tolerant  spirit,  the  statesmen  of 
Japan  and  America  can  solve  the  present-day  prob- 
lems. But  others  like  them  will  immediately  spring 
up,  and  little  progress  will  be  made  through  their  solu- 
tion because  the  realm  in  which  they  arise  is  controlled 
by  the  rules  of  savagery  and  not  by  the  laws  of  civiliza- 
tion. Whether  the  present  questions  between  our 
countries  are  peacefully  composed  or  not,  Japan  and 
America,  and  all  the  considerable  Powers  of  the 
world,  will  inevitably  advance  further  and  further 
into  this  savage  over-world.  Business  and  the  interests 
of  humanity  will  compel  such  advance.  To  learn  what 
will  happen  then,  we  need  only  point  to  what  is  happen- 
ing now. 

Modern  business  and  the  growth  of  human  sym- 
pathy is  the  new  wine  which  the  people  of  Japan  and 
the  people  of  the  United  States  and  the  peoples  of  the 
great  European  countries  have  been  and  are  now  pour- 
ing into  the  old  bottles  of  national  sovereignty,  with 
the  usual  results. 

The  anarchy  of  this  over-zone  cannot  be  destroyed 
by  Japan  and  America  and  the  other  great  nations  of 
the  world  through  any  half-way  measures.  Nor  can 
we  ignore  it.  We  must  deal  with  it.  Nothing  less  than 
revolution  in  the  existing  international  order  will  serve. 

Can  the  people  of  Japan  and  the  people  of  the  United 
States  contemplate  with  any  patience  the  signing  of 


24  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  usual  forms  of  peace  when  this  war  ends?  We  all 
know  too  well  what  that  will  mean.  We  can  even  now 
see  the  contestants  limping  off,  each  to  its  own  bit  of 
earth,  immediately  to  begin  preparation  for  the  next 
and  greater  slaughter.  Haven't  we  had  enough  of 
slaughter?  Haven't  we  had  enough  of  a  program 
which  means  periodical  human  butchery  and  can  never 
mean  anything  else? 

We  may  as  well  face  the  truth;  our  leaders  have 
failed.  They  have  led  the  world  to  a  shambles.  But 
the  people  have  not  failed.  Their  heroism  is  to-day 
as  unselfish  and  as  splendid  as  the  heroism  of  Ther- 
mopylae. The  fiber  of  the  common  man  has  not  de- 
teriorated. It  shines  resplendent  in  France,  in  Bel- 
gium, in  Germany,  in  Austria,  in  Russia,  and  in  the 
Orient.  In  the  grip  of  national  sovereignty  the  people 
are  apparently  helpless.  As  the  world  is  now  led,  men 
must  periodically  go  out  to  slaughter  their  brothers 
with  whom  they  have  no  quarrel.  Isn't  it  time  for  a 
new  leadership? 

I  have  said  that  no  nation  is  now  self-sufficient.  I 
do  not  sa}^  that  nationality  has  not  served  a  high  pur- 
pose, but  the  bloody  fields  of  Europe  show  conclusively 
that  whatever  nationality  may  have  achieved  in  the 
past,  it  cannot  now  render  to  humanity  any  service 
which  for  a  moment  justifies  the  hideous  human  sacri- 
fice, which,  Moloch-like,  it  exacts.  This  war  is  hu- 
manity's greatest  tragedy,  but  it  will  not  have  suffered 
in  vain  if  its  opportunity  is  fairly  grasped.  The  war's 
close  will  be  that  ''tide  in  the  affairs  of  men"  which 
must  be  "taken  at  the  flood".  No  people  in  all  the 
world  can  render  a  nobler  ser\'ice  in  that  hour  than  the 
people  of  Nippon.     You  have  seen  the  world  within 


Human  Brotherhood  25 

the  memories  of  men  now  living  expand  as  it  did  when 
you  decided  to  open  your  gates  sixty  years  ago,  and 
you  have  seen  it  contract  through  the  discoveries  of 
modern  science. 

Beyond  any  other  people  you  are  in  touch  with 
what  is  old,  and  yet  you  are  in  sympathy  with  what 
is  new.  You  have  within  recent  years  shown  a  self- 
control,  a  broad  tolerance,  and  a  genius  for  achieve- 
ment which  stamp  you  as  a  great  and  a  greatly  humane 
people.  Will  you,  therefore,  when  the  hour  strikes, 
join  hands  with  the  people  of  the  United  States  of 
America  in  the  formation  of  a  Federation  which  shall 
place  humanity  above  nationality? 

Happily  there  is  a  precedent  which  indicates  how 
this  Federation  can  be  formed  and  what  it  should  mean. 

In  1781  the  thirteen  colonies  of  the  United  States 
took  half-way  measures  for  the  creation  of  a  nation. 
They  formed  what  was  known  as  the  American  Con- 
federation. This  was  actually  an  attempt  to  create  a 
central  power  without  surrendering  to  it  whatever  au- 
thority was  necessar}^  to  control  interstate  questions. 
The  American  Confederation  became  little  more  than 
a  travesty  on  government.  It  was  as  inefficient  then 
as  International  Law  is  now.  But  in  1787  the  thirteen 
quarreling  States  abandoned  the  old  program,  adopted 
a  Constitution,  and  thereby  created  a  central  authority 
known  as  the  Federal  Government.  The  States  sur- 
rendered nothing  in  creating  the  central  government, 
except  a  little  false  pride.  By  that  surrender  they 
achieved  America  and  all  that  America  means.  They 
failed  to  secure  permanent  peace  because  they  did  not 
in  the  Constitution  make  the  authority  of  the  Federal 
Government  sufficiently  exphcit.     This  resulted  in  our 


26  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

great  Ci\'il  War.  That  Constitutional  error  was 
promptly  rectified,  and  now  such  a  thing  as  war  between 
the  States  of  the  American  Union  is  unthinkable.  War 
between  the  nations  of  Europe  or  the  nations  of  the 
East  or  between  the  West  and  the  East  must  be  made 
equally  unthinkable. 

I  believe  the  people  of  the  United  States  of  America 
are  ready  to  help  ci\dlize  this  lawless  over-zone;  this 
realm  of  Moloch;  this  land  of  no-man  and  yet  of  every 
man;  this  land  in  which  plighted  faith  has  no  meaning, 
where  the  chastity  of  women  has  no  protection;  this 
land  where  intrigue  flourishes,  where  spies  swarm, 
where  men  smile  and  lie;  this  land  of  head-hunters; 
this  Gethsemane  of  civilization  where  women  and 
children  weep  before  they  are  crucified;  this  land  in 
which,  whether  we  will  or  no,  we  must  all  dwell. 

The  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty — and  that 
alone — has  filled  this  land  with  Horrors.  It  should  be 
the  Land  of  Promise,  because  it  is  the  unexplored  con- 
tinent of  human  brotherhood. 

We  of  Japan  and  America  must  unite  to  slay  its 
artificial  monsters,  to  banish  its  unnatural  terrors. 
Otherwise  sovereignty  will  go  on  quarreUng  with  sover- 
eignty, human  butchery  will  be  as  unchecked  as  it  has 
been  for  centuries  past,  until  that  day  arrives  when  the 
titular  head  of  a  really  unconditioned  sovereignty  shall 
set  his  heel  upon  the  neck  of  the  world. 


LIFE  INSURANCE 
AND  THE  CENTURY'S  OPPORTUNITY 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE 

THE  BERKSHIRE  COUNTY  (MASS.)  UNIVERSITY   CLUB 

MAPLEWOOD  HOTEL.  PITTSFIELD,  MASS. 

JUNE   1,  1915 


OR  the  first  time  since  this  spinning  speck 
we  call  the  world  was  whirled  into  form,  for 
the  first  time  since  that  disputed  date  when 
according  to  the  Hebrew  Scripture  God 
said:  "Let  There  Be  Light,"  there  is  on  this 
old  earth  a  lack  of  room.  The  world  is  crowded.  The 
ends  of  the  earth  have  come  together.  There  are  no 
hermit  nations;  no  foreign  lands.  No  people  can  now 
be  greatly  wronged  without  invohdng  other  peoples. 
No  question  between  peoples  can  be  discussed  without 
inviting  the  interest,  and  possibly  the  direct  inter- 
ference, of  other  nations.  This  makes  the  twentieth 
centurj^  the  first  World-Century — the  greatest  of  all 
centuries  in  its  significance. 

Earher  centuries,  however  great  their  achievements, 
have  been,  by  comparison,  provincial.  Even  when  the 
struggles  of  these  centuries  involved  all  of  the  known 
world,  the  known  world  was  not  so  large  as  the  un- 
known. This  was  true  of  all  the  so-called  universal 
empires — the  Assyrian,  the  Persian,  the  Alexandrian, 
and  the  Roman.    It  would  have  been  measurably  true 

27 


28  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

of  the  Napoleonic  even  if  the  snows  of  Russia  had  not 
overwhelmed  the  Corsican  a  century  ago. 

The  great  conflicts  of  other  ages  have  been  the  prod- 
uct of  racial  rivalries,  of  religious  bigotry,  of  political 
ambitions,  but  all  have  been  less  than  world-wide  in 
their  reach.  Never  before  has  the  whole  world  been 
embattled  or  embroiled,  and  never  before  has  even  a 
part  of  the  world  been  embroiled  for  such  a  reason. 
The  progress  of  humanity  had  so  shrunk  the  world  that 
as  governments  were  organized  there  was  in  August, 
1914,  actually  a  lack  of  room.  Nationality  had  sub- 
stantially reached  its  limit.  The  nations  had  begun  so 
to  press  upon  each  other,  their  impact  was  so  un- 
yielchng,  their  relations  so  chaotic,  that  each  of  two 
great  European  groups  suddenly  on  the  4th  of  August 
last  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that  their  very  existence 
was  imperilled.  Believing  that,  of  course  they  had  to 
fight.  The  nations  of  Europe,  each  asserting  uncon- 
ditioned sovereignty,  could  not  live  permanently  at 
peace.  In  a  given  space  at  a  given  time  there  can  be 
only  one  solid  body,  and  in  this  world  there  can  be 
permanent  peace  only  when  there  is  in  all  the  world 
only  one  unconditioned  sovereignty.  How  to  preserve 
human  liberty,  race  consciousness,  national  pride,  and 
yet  so  plan  that  there  shall  ultimately  be  one  and  only 
one  controlling  expression  of  sovereignty  is  the  problem 
of  the  twentieth  century.  In  its  early  solution  lies  the 
severest  test  of  the  present  quality  of  the  human  race. 

Is  the  race  now  equal  to  this  unprecedented  task,  or 
are  we  again  to  revert  to  a  period  of  darkness?  Some 
of  us  are  so  optimistic  as  to  beUeve  that  even  then  a 
second  renaissance  would  follow,  and  a  citizenship 
based  on  the  doctrine  of  human  brotherhood  would 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Century's  Opportunity     29 

ultimately  be  reached.  The  question  is:  Can  the 
doctrine  of  human  brotherhood  be  estabhshed  noiv? 

Possibly  our  times,  even  before  this  war  began,  in 
the  perspective  of  history,  will  be  rated  as  reactionary. 
Perhaps  a  renaissance  is  quite  as  necessary  now  as  it 
was  in  the  fourteenth  century;  indeed,  it  is  reasonably 
clear  that  the  revival  of  learning  was  an  event  of  no 
greater  importance  then  than  a  movement  to  make 
humanity  and  not  nationality  the  supreme  purpose  of 
all  government  would  be  now. 

\Miat  reasons  may  be  advanced  for  the  belief  that 
the  dark  ages  will  not  recur,  or,  assuming  that  our  own 
times  represent  a  period  of  darkness,  that  we  shall 
presentl}^  establish  the  United  States  of  the  World. 
There  are  many  reasons,  but  I  can  deal  this  evening 
with  only  one. 

Such  a  program  must  be  based  on  the  doctrine  of 
human  brotherhood  and  a  world  citizenship.  Life  In- 
surance was  the  first  practical  enterprise  to  assert  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  to  create  an  organization  based  on 
a  world  citizenship,  and  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
world  has  become  very  small. 

Present-day  nationalities  are  based  on  a  substantial 
denial  of  man's  brotherhood,  on  a  direct  denial  of  such 
a  thing  as  a  world  citizenship,  and  the  assumption — • 
in  the  face  of  incontrovertible  facts  to  the  contrary — 
that  the  world  is  very  large. 

Life  Insurance  and  Nationality  are  in  large  par- 
ticulars in  direct  opposition.  Which  principle  is  to 
prevail? 

But  for  the  inertia  of  the  established  order,  an 
answer  to  that  question  would  be  easy.  Just  now 
sovereignties  in  their  international  relations  have  so 


30  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

utterly  failed,  have  so  wickedly  cheated  the  world, 
have  so  ferociously  set  man  against  his  brother,  that 
we  do  not  need  to  point  to  the  wisdom  and  beneficence 
of  life  insurance  to  prove  that  whatever  may  have 
been  true  in  the  past,  the  doctrine  of  nationality  has 
reached  its  limits  and  the  time  has  come  to  adopt  a 
larger  program. 

In  its  international  relations,  the  world  last  August 
was  living  in  an  age  of  pure  savagery.  We  can  see 
things  now  that  we  could  not  see  then.  The  contrast 
between  the  good  order,  the  justice,  the  safety  of  person 
and  property,  which  represented  the  inner  life  of  each 
nation,  and  the  deadly  peril  which  threatened  every 
citizen  of  every  nation  in  the  larger  world  of  inter- 
national relations  is  obvious  now.  The  picture  has 
been  burned  into  our  consciousness  in  the  last  ten 
months.  Here  were  eight  great  powers,  each  adhering 
to  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty,  that  is 
each  claimed  to  obey  no  law  but  its  own, — except  such 
law  as  it  might  have  itself  written  in  what  are  called 
international  treaties,  obligations  which  after  all  are 
limited  in  their  force  by  the  separate  judgment  of  the 
signatories  and  have,  not  unnaturally,  through  all 
history  been  neglected  or  utterly  disregarded  under 
the  stress  of  real  or  alleged  necessity^  Each  nationality 
operated  substantially  on  the  theory  that  it  alone  was 
right;  on  the  theory  that  whether  it  was  right  or  not, 
it  was  prepared  to  defend  its  sovereignty  with  the  Uves 
of  all  its  citizens  or  subjects  and  its  last  bit  of  property. 
These  assumptions  are  very  old.  They  go  back  to  the 
events  that  succeeded  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
They  have  not  essentially  changed  in  all  that  time. 
But  the  world  has  changed,  and  changed  so  much  that 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Century's  Opportunity     31 

either  these  assumptions  must  be  measurably  aban- 
doned, or  the  conditions  which  now  rule  in  Europe  will 
continue  indefinitely. 

Nationality  assumes  self-sufficiency,  and  we  all  know 
to-day  no  nation  is  self-sufficient.  Self-sufficiency 
achieved  would  be  a  mistake.  Why  should  a  nation  be 
self-sufficient?  Why  should  it  desire  to  be  self-sufficient? 
There  is  no  natural  reason  for  this  except  the  fear  that 
it  will  be  attacked.  The  natural  law  of  humanity  is  first 
self-help,  then  co-operation  and  then  inter-dependence. 
Inter-dependence  has  developed  with  the  progress  of  the 
discoveries  of  science,  and  has  advanced  in  spite  of  the 
assertions  of  nationality  to  such  a  degree  that  when  the 
savagery  of  nationality  asserted  itself  last  August,  the 
shock  to  civilization  was  vastly  more  serious  and  far- 
reaching  than  it  had  been  or  could  have  been  in  any 
pre\4ous  conflict  between  nations.  The  world  had 
grown  together.  The  blow  that  could  force  it  apart 
had  to  be  terrific  in  its  impact  and  necessarily  hideous 
in  its  results. 

Consider  how  silly  the  assumptions  of  nationality 
are.  We  had  a  startling  illustration  of  the  smallness 
of  the  world  just  recently.  The  destruction  of  the 
Lusitania  was  known  in  New  York  by  New  York  time 
before  it  actually  happened.  A  hundred  years  ago, 
because  the  world  was  much  larger,  a  battle  was  fought 
in  New  Orleans  two  weeks  after  a  treaty  of  peace  had 
been  signed  between  the  contending  parties.  The 
present  methods  of  communication  would  have  saved 
the  tragedy  of  New  Orleans,  but  that  the  savagery  of 
nationality  has  been  untouched  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  instant  communication  not  only  could  not  save 
the   Lusitania  but  probably  contributed  to  her  de- 


32  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

struction.  The  barbarism  that  hes  at  the  basis  of 
international  relations  is  the  same  barbarism  in  the 
twentieth  century  that  it  was  in  the  times  of  Napoleon 
and  earlier.  Of  course  this  ought  not  to  be.  Con- 
ditions which  put  all  mankind  in  instant  touch,  through 
messengers  which  outspeed  the  sun  in  its  course,  ought 
to  have  brought  a  better  understanding  between  men, 
ought  to  have  created  the  sympathy  which  follows 
understanding.  Outside  of  Life  Insurance  and  some 
phases  of  commerce,  nothing  of  the  sort  has  happened. 
The  developments  of  modern  science,  the  quick  inter- 
change of  knowledge,  the  growth  of  commerce  and  the 
necessary  inter-dependence  of  peoples,  have  been  so 
perverted  by  the  demands  of  sovereignty  as  to  embitter 
international  relations.  vSo  perverted  they  have  not 
softened  the  asperities  of  international  intercourse,  they 
seem  rather  to  have  multipUed  the  implements  of  war 
and  death,  and  to  have  actually  created  in  some  human 
hearts  a  cruelty  so  remorseless  and  so  utter  that 
savagery  no  longer  seems  the  proper  word  to  use  in 
describing  the  relations  of  nations. 

Indeed  we  need  a  renaissance.  Internationally  we 
are  now  in  a  period  blacker  than  the  dark  ages, — 
savagery  rampant  and  regnant,  not  in  the  heart  of 
Africa,  not  in  some  remote  corner  of  Asia  or  South 
America,  but  here  and  ever\n^'here  throughout  ci\iliza  • 
tion;  in  the  twentieth  centurj^, — in  a  time  when  a  man 
can  sit  at  his  desk  in  New  York  and  talk  with  a  friend 
in  San  Francisco  as  easily  as  he  can  dictate  a  letter  to 
his  secretary. 

Every  man  it  appears,  therefore,  in  every  nation  Uves 
in  two  worlds :  one  ci\'ilized,  and  one  savage.  He  lives 
in  the  humane  and  peaceful  and  decent  order  of  his 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Century's  Opportunity     33 

own  country;  and  at  the  same  time  in  the  lawless  over- 
world  of  which  every  sovereignty  and  every  citizen  of 
that  sovereignty  is  a  part.  This  over-world  is  as  cer- 
tainly every  man's  country  as  the  ether  is  the  en- 
veloping element  of  the  solar  system.  We  may  ignore 
it ;  we  have  tried  to  do  that.  Every  nation  has  tried  to 
ignore  it,  with  one  exception.  Germany  did  not  ignore 
it.  She  prepared  and  prepared  ruthlessly  for  the  con- 
flict which  was  inevitable.  Every  other  nation  dwelt 
in  a  FooFs  Paradise.  I  call  it  a  Fool's  Paradise  because 
all  nations  should  long  since  have  taken  action  to 
organize  this  over-world.  ]\Iorally  Germany  may  have 
been  wrong,  because  preparation  meant  war;  morally 
other  nations  were  about  equally  wrong  and  in  ad- 
dition they  were  illogical,  because  while  they  flinched 
from  the  brutality  of  the  German's  logic,  they  did 
little  to  answer  it, — they  made  onlj^  pitiful  attempts  to 
sweep  lawlessness  out  of  international  affairs.  As- 
serting after  a  fashion  the  brotherhood  of  man,  they 
did  nothing  effective  or  serious,  looking  to  its  establish- 
ment. The  German  in  effect  boldly  denied  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  asserted  the  superiority  of  his  own 
ci\'ilization  and  planned  to  impose  that  ci\'ilization  on 
the  whole  world.  The  German  may  have  been  wTong 
morally;  but  he  stood  up  to  his  logic.  And,  mark  this: 
Unless  the  peoples  of  the  world  abandon  this  Fool's 
Paradise,  unless  they  organize  and  civilize  this  savage 
over-world,  unless  they  qualify  the  existing  doctrine  of 
unconditioned  sovereignty,  and  create  a  new  order,  the 
basis  of  which  is  humanity,  Germany,  or  some  other 
people  who  believe  as  the  Germans  do,  will  prevail  and 
an  empire  will  be  established  that  will  be  universal 
indeed.     Before  that  happens  we  shall  have  an  utter 


34  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

end  of  democracy.  Which  then  shall  it  be,  autocracy 
or  democracy?  It  must  be  one  or  the  other.  This 
over-world  will  be  organized.  It  must  be.  The  pressure 
of  the  life  of  the  world  ^\ill  compel  it.  Shall  democracy 
— the  people — do  it,  deri\'ing  their  powers  from  the 
consent  of  humanity,  or  shall  autocracy  do  it,  deri^dng 
its  power  from  the  force  it  commands  and  justifjdng 
its  rule  by  some  theory  of  Divine  permission? 

This,  and  not  the  present  European  War,  is  the  great 
issue  before  the  world  to-day. 

For  us  to  assume  that  this  over-world  will  be  organ- 
ized by  anything  but  democracy  is  to  abandon  the 
principles  for  which  this  nation  has  always  stood.  I 
make  bold  to  assert  that  democracy  must  organize  this 
unknown  continent,  and  that  it  will  do  so.  I  also 
assert  that  the  first  great  coherent  and  adequate  plan 
which  has  entered  this  over-world  and  has  begun  to 
organize  it  is  Life  Insurance.  If,  then,  you  ask  me 
whether  I  would  bestow  on  Life  Insurance  the  dignity 
which  attaches  to  problems  of  state,  my  answer  is 
emphatically  that  "I  would  and  I  do".  I  bestow  on 
it  more  than  that  dignity.  It  is  the  one  idea  current 
amongst  men  to-day  which  runs  so  parallel  to  the  line 
of  human  development  that  it  long  since  passed  the 
limits  of  present-day  sovereignties  and  has  for  years 
been  busy  civilizing  this  savagery  in  which  we  all  Uve. 
While  nations  were  asserting  that  because  of  racial 
differences  and  religious  conflicts  and  century-old  hates, 
the  units  of  humanity  must  remain  as  they  are  and 
must  preserve  their  integrity  by  bloody  conflicts,  Life 
Insurance  was  demonstrating  that  men — in  spite  of 
differences  of  race,  and  color,  and  rehgion — can  work 
soundly  and  peacefully  together. 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Century's  Opportunity      35 

The  law  of  Life  Insurance  is  very  simple, — it  is  the 
law  of  human  brotherhood.  life  Insurance  does  not 
proceed  on  any  unproven  theories,  it  does  not  \'iolently 
take  from  one  and  give  to  another;  it  values  each  life 
and  gives  to  each  life  only  what  it  is  contractually 
entitled  to;  and,  to  the  confusion  of  sociologists  and 
statesmen,  it  finds  that  humanity  upon  the  whole 
wants  onlj^  what  it  is  entitled  to.  The  republic  so 
established  is  not  inconsiderable.  In  several  American 
companies  there  are  involved  directly  and  indirectly 
more  lives  than  are  included  within  some  of  the  so-called 
sovereignties  that  are  engaged  in  the  European  war. 

And  what  have  these  millions  of  men  of  all  races  and 
colors  and  rehgions  entrusted  to  each  other?  They  have 
trusted  each  other  with  about  all  that  is  involved  in 
any  proper  social  or  governmental  program.  They  have 
substantially  covered  the  whole  ground  of  society  and 
government.  They  have  proven,  in  other  words,  that 
it  can  be  done.  For  example,  in  one  international 
institution  the  membership  owns  securities  worth  more 
than  8800,000,000.  No  member  feels  that  his  rights 
are  threatened  because  he  finds  among  his  associates 
other  races  and  other  nations.  Why  should  he  be 
anxious.  Is  not  this  lack  of  anxiety  the  natural  attitude 
for  the  man  to  assume?  Isn't  the  reverse  attitude  the 
artificial  and  the  unnatural  attitude?  Frenchmen  and 
Germans,  acting  without  governmental  constraint, 
through  life  insurance  enter  into  a  partnership  which 
involves  the  welfare  of  their  families  and  a  provision 
for  their  own  old  age.  To  do  this  they  have  to  trust 
each  other.  They  do  not  naturally  expect  to  be  over- 
reached. They  frequently  put  about  all  they  have 
into  the  partnership. 


36  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

But  bring  these  same  men  together  in  the  over-world 
of  international  relations  and  what  a  transformation! 
They  at  once  become  savages.  They  are  the  same  men, 
and  a  moment  ago  they  were  brothers.  What  has  hap- 
pened so  to  transform  them?  Simply  this :  They  have 
left  the  world  of  law  and  order  and  good  feeling  which 
exists  within  the  limits  of  their  own  nationality, — a 
condition  which  life  insurance  has  carried  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  nationalities, — and  have  entered  the 
lawless  world  into  which  nationalities  in  the  nature  of 
things  cannot  go  without  becoming  savages.  When, 
therefore,  the  nation  becomes  savage,  the  man  as  a 
citizen  becomes  a  savage  also.  But  the  man  through 
life  insurance  has  discovered  that  when  he  enters  this 
same  world  as  a  human  being,  as  an  insurant,  and  not 
as  a  nationalist,  he  is  not  himself  a  savage,  nor  is  he 
surrounded  by  savages.  And  yet  he  is  in  the  same 
world,  is  himself  the  same  man,  and  is  surrounded  by 
the  same  men. 

Men  of  different  nations,  different  races,  different 
colors,  and  different  religions,  must  hereafter  have 
relations  with  each  other.  The  spark  that  Franklin 
drew  through  his  kite  from  the  upper  air  was  mightier 
than  any  thunderbolt  forged  by  Jupiter,  and  it  will 
remain.  Life  insurance  has  anticipated  that  this  would 
be  the  case,  and  has  shown  the  way.  But  under  the 
doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty  civilized  relations 
cannot  be  maintained  internationally.  Therefore,  if 
the  savagery  in  which  the  citizenship  as  well  as  the 
nationalities  of  the  world  now  live,  is  to  be  eliminated, 
Nationality  as  such  must  assume  a  subordinate  relation 
in  a  new  and  higher  order  which  humanity  itself  must 
establish.    That  relation,  in  a  general  way,  corresponds 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Century'' s  Opportunity     37 

with  the  relations  which  Massachusetts  sustains  to  the 
Federal  Government. 

Life  Insurance  has  been  the  Pilgrim  of  this  unex- 
plored continent.  The  United  States  of  the  World, 
which  I  firmly  believe  is  coming,  will  simply  be  a  great 
insurance  company,  which  will  as  certainly  banish 
the  terrors  of  war  as  life  insurance  now  banishes  for 
its  membership  the  fear  of  premature  death. 

So  organized  there  is  room  enough  in  the  world  and 
room  to  spare.  So  civilized  this  over-world  will  become 
tangible  and  mighty  and  beneficent — even  as  the 
United  States  of  America,  though  inseparable  from  its 
constituent  states,  is  tangible  and  mighty  and  bene- 
ficent. 

The  cave  man,  whose  hand  was  against  every  other 
man,  learned  the  better  law  of  the  family  and  sur- 
rendered his  unconditioned  sovereignty.  The  family 
learned  the  better  law  of  the  clan;  the  clan  the  better 
law  of  the  tribe;  the  tribe  the  better  law  of  the  state; 
the  state  the  better  law^  of  larger  units.  So-called 
unconditioned  sovereignty  was  abandoned  in  each  case 
as  the  forward  step  was  taken.  Now  the  great  sover- 
eignties must  learn  the  better  law  of  human  brother- 
hood. In  order  to  do  that  some  measure  of  so-called 
sovereignty  must  nominally  be  surrendered;  but  the 
surrender  \vill  be,  as  it  always  has  been,  a  victory  and 
not  a  humiliation.  It  will  not  destroy  nationality  but 
preserve  it  by  protecting  it.  It  will  create  the  order 
foreshadowed  two  thousand  years  ago — 

"On  Earth  Peace,  Good  Will  toward  Men." 


"A  MAN'S  A  MAN  FOR  A'  THAT" 


AN  ADDRESS— RESPONDING  ON  BEHALF 

OF  THE  WORLD'S  INSURANCE  CONGRESS  TO  ADDRESSES 

OF  WELCOME  BY  THE  GOVERNOR  OF  THE  STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA  AND 

THE  MAYOR  OF  THE  CITY  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO,  OCTOBER  4,  1915, 

PANAMA-PACIFIC  INTERNATIONAL  EXPOSITION 


RDINARILY,  insurance  is  regarded  as  a 
device  by  which  Hfe,  property,  and  busi- 
!  ness  are  protected  against  the  vicissitudes 
of  time  and  circumstance.  It  is  much 
more  than  that.  It  is  the  destroyer  of 
prejudice  and  the  enemy  of  a  very  dangerous  kind  of 
ignorance.  It  appeals  to  the  mass  feehng,  to  those 
impulses  which  foreshadow  the  ultimate  achievement 
of  human  solidarity.  In  its  offices  and  on  its  streets 
the  peoples  of  all  lands  and  of  all  races  meet  and  mingle 
daily.  It  is  a  world-exposition  whose  doors  never  close. 
Thus  welcomed  to  this  City  of  Dreams,  to  this  epi- 
tome of  all  that  was  best  in  our  recent  civilization, 
insurance  naturally  feels  itself  no  stranger  and  indeed 
flatters  itself  that  whatever  pertinence  the  formulas  of 
welcome  may  or  may  not  have  on  some  occasions,  the 
proprieties  were  not  transgressed  nor  the  truth  sur- 
passed in  the  fervent  and  eloquent  speeches  of  welcome 
just  delivered  by  the  executive  heads  of  the  State  and 
City. 

A  world-exposition  should  reflect  world-conditions; 
it  presupposes  world-wide  intercourse,  world-wide  un- 

3S 


"A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  that"  39 

derstanding,  and  some  considerable  degree  of  world- 
wide sympathy  and  faith. 

Tested  by  this  rule,  the  Panama-Pacific  International 
Exposition  seems  not  a  real  thing  but  a  resurrection  of 
an  earlier  and  better  age.  It  stands  out  like  a  half- 
submerged  mountain  peak  marking  the  spot  where  a 
noble  continent  once  was.  It  tells  us  that  even  in  our 
day  men  did  laugh  together,  and  did  love  each  other 
and  did  have  faith. 

This  Exposition,  therefore,  is  more  than  an  exposi- 
tion. It  does  not  reflect  the  condition  and  present 
purposes  of  the  world.  If  it  did,  it  would  emphasize 
the  possibility,  aye  the  probability,  that  we  may  not 
for  generations  have  a  civilization  equal  to  that  of 
August  1,  1914.  This  Capital  of  the  arts,  the  learn- 
ing, and  the  achievement  of  the  world,  does  not  re- 
motely suggest  such  reflections.  It  suggests  living 
beauty,  and  international  understanding  and  inter- 
national peace.  We,  alas!  know  that  its  suggestion  is 
little  better  than  a  mockery,  because  these  splendid 
piles,  these  soaring  arches  stand  in  the  forum  of  the 
world  not  unlike  those  pathetic  pillars  of  the  temple  of 
Castor  and  Pollux  in  the  Roman  Forum,  eloquent  of 
the  power  and  beauty  of  a  dead  civilization. 

Against  the  methods  which  resulted  in  the  existing 
European  horror  insurance  has  always  been  a  warning 
and  a  protest  and  has  always  suggested  a  remedy.  It 
has  been  a  warning  and  a  protest  because  it  has  taught 
the  insufficiency  of  the  unit  of  anything — whether  that 
unit  be  a  man  or  a  business  or  a  nation.  It  has  sug- 
gested a  remedy  not  only  because  of  the  billions  which 
it  has  distributed  (and  is  distributing  now)  in  alleviat- 
ing the  tragedies  of  life  but  because  it  has  taught  and 


40  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

practiced  the  doctrine  of  co-operation,  in  which  lies 
the  greater  portion  of  any  existing  and  reasonable  hope 
that  our  civilization  may  not  after  all  be  utterly  over- 
whelmed. 

In  the  struggle  for  existence  insurance  is  a  de\dce  by 
which  present  strength  unites  to  protect  society  against 
future  weakness. 

Insurance  is  a  perpetual  warning  that  nationality  as 
a  basis  for  ci\ilization  is  insufficient.  Civihzation  has 
broken  down  because  its  units — the  nations — could 
severally  no  more  carry  their  individual  risk  than  a 
man  can  carry  the  risk  of  his  own  mortality.  If  each 
great  nation  had  a  world  completely  to  itself,  the 
problem  might  be  different.  But  our  problem  is 
gravely  complex.  Here  are  eight  great  powers  and 
several  times  that  number  of  lesser  sovereignties,  each 
struggling  and  developing  on  the  theory  that  they 
severally  are  substantially  alone  in  the  world.  They 
recognize  the  existence  of  other  powers  through  con- 
tracts called  treaties.  The  morality  of  these  treaties 
is  historically  shown  to  be  little  better  than  the 
"honor"  which  exists  amongst  bullies  and  thieves. 
They  are  necessarily  interpreted  by  their  makers  and 
not  by  an  impartial  court,  because  there  is  no  such 
court,  and  can  be  none  under  the  existing  doctrine  of 
sovereignty. 

The  nations  have,  therefore,  lived  internationally  in 
an  order  where  the  hazard  was  greater  than  the  normal 
hazards  of  life  and  business.  It  could  hardly  be  called 
a  hazard  at  all ;  it  was  a  certainty.  This  world  struggle 
was  ine\4table,  unless  radical  reorganizations  of  inter- 
national relations  were  agreed  to,  unless  some  plan  of 
international  insurance  could  be  established.     Little, 


"A  Mail's  a  Man  for  a'  that"  41 

however,  was  done.  The  god  of  unconditioned  sover- 
eignty was  everywhere  worshipped.  NationaUty  im- 
pinged on  nationahty.  The  world  grew  smaller.  The 
international  impact  grew  hea\der.  Germans  saw  the 
significance  of  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  in  the  time 
of  the  Great  Frederick.  They  began  to  get  ready.  The 
other  European  nations  did  not  see  the  true  significance 
of  the  situation  and  prepared  only  half-heartedly  for  a 
struggle  upon  which  they  never  really  expected  to 
enter. 

No  nation  took  the  lead  in  a  movement  to  insure  the 
perpetuity  of  all  through  assured  peace  for  all.  Ger- 
many, logically  following  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty, 
deliberately  prepared  to  impose  her  civilization  on  the 
entire  world.  The  other  nations  built  up  the  elaborate 
fabric  of  their  peaceful  purposes  without  adequate 
preparations  to  defend  that  structure  by  force  on  the 
one  hand  or  a  program  of  world-co-operation  to  pre- 
serve it  on  the  other. 

Germany  aimed  to  insure  herself  by  her  might,  which 
spelled  world  dominion  and  could  mean  nothing  else. 
The  other  nations  denied  any  ambition  for  world  do- 
minion and  at  the  same  time  utterl}-  neglected  to  pro- 
tect their  integrity  through  co-operation.  The  so- 
called  Allies  have  neither  lived  up  to  the  logic  of 
unconditioned  sovereignty  nor  prepared  the  world  for 
its  opposite  through  international  insurance. 

The  government  at  Washington,  whatever  else  it  is, 
is  a  great  insurance  company  whose  chief  function  is  to 
guarantee  the  peace  and  integrity  of  the  States.  It 
follows  precisely  the  principles  which  underlie  all  sound 
insurance.  Why  do  California  and  New  York  exist  as 
commonwealths  to-day?     Would  they  probably  exist 


42  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

but  for  the  Federal  Union?  Have  they  lost  any  dig- 
nity or  power  or  happiness  or  peace  because  they  have 
duly  subscribed  to  the  great  insurance  compact  of  1789? 
Would  nations  fare  differently  if  a  like  compact  were 
made  under  a  larger  Federation? 

When  someone  remarks  that  we  must  travel  a  long 
way  fonvard  before  we  reach  such  a  federation,  it  be- 
comes pertinent  to  reply  that  we  have  traveled  a  long 
way  backward  within  fourteen  months  and  at  infinite 
cost.  If  the  constructive  forces  of  the  world,  as  they 
existed  on  August  1,  1914,  could  have  been  brought 
into  co-operation,  if  the  bigotry  that  skulks  behind 
what  we  call  patriotism  could  have  been  exorcised,  if 
human  rights  and  not  national  sovereignty  could  have 
been  made  the  supreme  purpose  of  ci\'il  society,  the 
distance  which  then  separated  us  from  a  condition  of 
international  civihzation  and  world  peace,  real  peace, 
lasting  peace,  would  have  been  shorter  than  that 
already  measured  in  the  existing  plunge  toward  chaos. 
The  world  was  so  led  that  it  stupidly  chose  to  plunge 
toward  chaos. 

The  man  who  doesn't  insure  his  life  and  his  property 
and  his  business  we  rate  as  stupid.  Sovereignty  is  to 
every  citizen  a  menace  as  real  as  that  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  life,  an  enemy  as  certain  and  cruel  in  its  average  ac- 
tion as  human  mortality.  Yet  self-governing  men, 
men  who  otherwise  think  and  look  facts  in  the  face, 
make  little  or  no  provision  against  its  operation.  In 
seeking  for  a  word  which  describes  the  condition  of 
mind  of  the  average  citizenship  of  the  world  in  its  atti- 
tude toward  sovereignty,  that  word  "stupid"  fits  bet- 
ter than  anj^  word  I  know. 


"A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  that"  43 

For  the  common  man  to  allow  his  governments  to 
force  him  to  kill  and  be  killed  for  no  sufficient  reason  is 
stupid;  for  him  to  become  obsessed  with  the  idea  that 
the  peoples  of  other  nations  want  to  wrong  him  is 
stupid;  for  him  to  believe  that  it  is  his  duty  to  slay  his 
fellows  and  destroy  their  property  is  stupid;  for  him  to 
raise  up  sons  with  infinite  pains  and  at  heavy  cost  to 
have  those  sons  fed  to  cannon  is  stupid;  for  him  not  to 
see  through  the  designs  or  unconscious  errors  of  poli- 
ticians and  rulers  is  stupid;  for  him  to  have  followed 
leaders  so  wicked  or  so  blind  that  they  have  led  him  to 
a  shambles  was  stupid.  It  was  stupid — because  there 
is  little  about  this  war  that  suggests  Thermopylae 
or  Tours  or  Lexington  or  Gettysburg,  where  resistance 
was  righteously  made  to  tyranny  or  error.  This  war 
is  the  logical  resultant  of  forces  that  were  perfectly 
open  in  their  operation  and  perfectly  certain  in  their 
issue.  The  statesmen  of  the  world  could  not  or  did 
not  rise  above  the  provincialism  of  nationality.  Re- 
morselessly or  blindly  or  stupidly — some  will  say  de- 
liberately— they  drove  the  great  machines  of  modern 
civilization  into  each  other,  head  on. 

We  have  on  our  Northern  border  all  the  elements  of 
a  similar  collision.  Four  thousand  miles  of  frontier 
separate  us  from  Canada.  Along  that  entire  front 
there  has  been  no  fort  and  on  the  great  inland  seas 
which  lie  between  no  ship  of  war,  for  well  nigh  a  cen- 
tury. There  is  nowhere  in  the  world  a  more  splendid 
people  than  these  Canadian  neighbors.  For  us  and 
them  to  drift  along  in  a  sort  of  fool's  paradise  with  no 
strong  and  definite  arrangement  which  will  insure 
them  and  their  sons  and  us  and  our  sons  against  the 
insanity  of  war  is  stupid.     We  have  been  lucky  for  a 


44  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

hundred  years  because  nothing  has  disturbed  our 
dreaming,  but  we  are  infinitely  stupid,  now  that  we 
reahze  the  brutal  possibilities  of  present-day  civiUza- 
tion,  in  continuing  conditions  fraught  with  such 
hideous  consequences.  It  would  be  as  savage  and 
as  monstrous  for  us  to  fight  with  Canada  as  it  would 
be  for  California  to  fight  with  Oregon.  There  is 
no  natural  reason  why  we  should — and  yet,  who 
shall  say  what  may  happen  while  they  assert  and  we 
assert  that  our  rights  as  nations  are  paramount  to  our 
several  rights  as  indi\'iduals,  as  human  beings? 

Consideration  of  our  relations  with  Canada  brings 
us  squarely  up  against  the  question  of  our  own  con- 
dition in  our  relations  to  international  problems. 

There  are  two  types  of  international  peace  insurance, 
one  already  established,  the  other  to  be  established: 

First.  Peace  insurance  based  on  might,  —  ex- 
pressed generally  in  a  great  standing  army 
and  a  powerful  navy. 

Second.  Peace  insurance  based  on  a  League  or  Fed- 
eration, to  which  the  peoples  shall  have  dele- 
gated such  authority  as  will  enable  it  to 
enforce  peace  internationally. 

The  first  type  of  insurance  may  be  called  the  Euro- 
pean plan,  adopted  practically  by  all  the  great  trans- 
Atlantic  powers,  and  most  perfectly  exemplified  by 
Germany.  What  sort  of  peace  that  plan  produces 
Europe  now  teaches  us.  What  the  system  ultimately 
leads  to  Shakespeare  expresses  through  Ulysses,  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  when  he  says: 

"Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 
Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 
And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power, 
Must  make,  perforce,  an  universal  prey, 
And,  last,  eat  up  himself." 


"A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  that"  45 

The  second  type  of  insurance  may  be  called  the 
American  plan  and  is  exemplified  in  the  Federation 
formed  by  the  Thirteen  Colonies  in  1789.  What  sort 
of  peace  insurance  the  American  plan  produces  the 
status  of  the  States  under  the  Federal  Union  shows. 
WTiat  it  shall  lead  to  depends  largely  on  what  we  do 
in  the  near  future. 

We  are  now  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  We  are 
li\-ing  by  the  American  plan;  as  a  people  we  are  acting 
as  we  would  act  if  the  federation  of  the  world  were 
already  an  accomplished  fact.  As  a  government,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  are  acting  on  the  European  plan, 
asserting  our  rights  under  so-called  international  law, 
and  threatening  to  establish  those  rights  by  force.  We 
may  now  and  then  establish  our  rights  internationally 
by  what  appears  to  be  sheer  moral  force;  but  the  man 
is  bhnd  who  does  not  see  that  in  a  direct  issue,  when 
nations  believe  their  existence  is  imperilled,  the  only 
law  is  still  the  law  of  might. 

Believing,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  time  has  come 
for  the  world  to  abandon  the  European  plan,  and 
believing  that  in  our  own  Federal  Government  we 
have  a  model  for  the  government  of  the  world,  we 
have  taken  no  very  serious  steps  to  establish  an  ade- 
quate League  or  Federation  of  the  Nations,  without 
which,  in  a  military  sense,  we  are  morally  as  much 
ahead  of  the  age  as  Roger  Williams  was  ahead  of  his 
age,  and  incidentally  perhaps  we  are  inviting  the  same 
fate.  We,  therefore,  even  more  than  the  nations  opposing 
Germany,  have  neither  lived  up  to  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty  nor  to  the  doctrine  of  human  brotherhood. 

You  have  welcomed  us  to  an  Exposition  which  re- 
flects the  civilization  of  the  twentieth  century  at  its 


46  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

zenith — possibly  it  reflects  civilization  at  the  highest 
point  it  ever  reached — if  we  consider  man's  relation  to 
the  forces  of  nature  and  his  triumph  over  some  of  the 
mysteries  which  she  has  until  recently  so  sedulously 
and  so  successfully  kept  from  us.  But  the  tragedy  of 
it!  You  show  us  these  wonders  wrought  out  for  the 
comfort  and  happiness  of  mankind,  and  behold!  the 
wonders  have  become  monsters,  because  these  master 
achievements  have  been  perverted  into  implements  of 
wholesale  murder.  Something  was  lacking  in  the  plan. 
What  was  it? 

The  world  plan  which  this  Exposition  represents 
lacked  the  principle  for  which  this  Congress  stands. 
The  Exposition  represents  efficiency  without  con- 
science; progress  without  order;  power  without  re- 
sponsibility. It  represents  the  work  of  men  far  ad- 
vanced into  the  unknown  who  have  since  become  con- 
fused and  instead  of  fighting  a  common  enemy  have 
fallen  upon  each  other.  They  advanced  so  eagerly 
that  they  lost  touch,  they  lost  sympathy — they  did 
not  see  the  whole  problem. 

Insurance,  on  the  other  hand,  represents  an  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  the  whole  problem.  Its  members 
do  not  become  confused  and  fight  each  other;  they 
help  each  other.  In  its  efficiency  there  is  the  conscience 
of  just  dealing,  which,  outside  the  New  England  con- 
science, is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  consciences.  In  its 
progress  there  is  the  strength  of  an  elbow  touch  so 
wide  that  disorder  cannot  break  in;  its  power  lies  in 
regulation  and  order  and  responsibility  and  inter- 
national democracy. 

This  Exposition  represents  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty. 
This  Congress  represents  the  doctrine  of  democracy. 


"A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  thaV'  47 

In  our  adherence  as  a  people  to  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty,  we  are  not  only  bhnd  but  inconsistent  and 
very  nearly  unfaithful  to  our  own  political  creed.  In 
1776  our  fathers  signed  a  declaration  of  principles  as 
well  as  a  declaration  of  rights  and  of  independence. 
They  declared  their  adherence  to  the  self-evident  truth 
that  all  men — not  citizens  of  the  United  States  alone, 
but  all  men — are  created  equal,  and  that  they  are  en- 
dowed b}^  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights, 
etc.  That  all  men  are  created  equal  is  not,  of  course, 
wholly  true;  but,  in  so  far  as  it  is  sound  and  in  so  far 
as  it  is  unsound,  it  is  equally  sound  and  unsound 
everywhere.  Its  error  does  not  follow  national  lines. 
In  international  relations  we,  with  all  other  republics, 
constantly  forget  that  men  are  men  whatever  their 
country,  that  the  demos  is  the  demos  whatever  its 
nationality. 

A  democracy  which  is  democratic  within  its  own 
geographic  limits  only  and  treats  all  other  peoples 
claiming  other  allegiance  as  beyond  the  pale,  is  pro- 
vincial and  selfish  and  has  missed  the  real  meaning  of 
the  doctrine  which  Jefferson  penned  and  the  fathers 
signed. 

There  are  some  twenty-four  republics  in  the  world. 
Most  of  them  are  truly  democratic  internally.  All  of 
them  are  arbitrary,  autocratic  and  undemocratic  in 
their  relations  with  each  other.  Under  the  doctrine 
of  unconditioned  sovereignty  democracy  dies  at  the 
frontier  of  every  republic. 

The  only  true  business  democracies  in  the  world 
to-day,  democracies  which  do  not  change  their  princi- 
ples at  any  geographic  frontier  and  have  themselves 
no  frontiers,  are  the  great  insurance  corporations  whose 


48  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

membership  is  world-wide  and  so  soundly  and  so  demo- 
cratically related  that  no  dynastic  ambition,  no  claim 
of  sovereignty,  can  at  all  change  their  beneficent  pur- 
pose or  materially  modify  their  humane  achievements. 
This  is  the  doctrine  that  will  be  preached  and 
preached  and  preached  in  the  several  sessions  of  this 
Congress.  Never  more  than  now  has  the  world  needed 
to  heed  its  truth.  Because  its  precepts  have  not  been 
followed,  governments  are  tottering,  millions  of  men 
have  alreadj^  died,  millions  of  women  have  been  cruci- 
fied, billions  of  dollars  have  been  squandered.  Civili- 
zation based  on  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  has  failed. 
It  is  time  to  adopt  a  new  program.  The  old  program 
is  damned  to  all  eternity.  That  new  program  must 
rest  upon  what  Burns  had  in  mind  when  he  wTote 

"A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 

The  thing  of  supreme  value  in  this  world  is  human 
life — not  because  it  is  stamped  American  or  English  or 
Russian  or  French,  but  because  it  is  in  itself  the  sum 
of  all  values,  without  which  no  other  thing  has  any 
value.  Nationality  is  the  expression  of  a  fugitive  con- 
dition; in  sociology  it  is  what  Burns  also  had  in  mind 
when  he  said: 

"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea  stamp." 

Change  the  word  "rank"  to  the  word  ''nation",  and 
the  line  reads: 

"The  Nation's  but  the  guinea  stamp." 

Insurance  may  be  primarily  a  device  for  the  pro- 
tection of  life,  property  and  business;  but  it  deals  with 
and  is  faithful  to  the  principle  of  race  solidarity,  and 
thereby  has  become  a  practical  and  powerful  leader 


"A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  that"  49 

amongst  the  forces  which  seek  the  ultimate  reahzation 
of  the  prayer  and  prophecy  which  closes  Burns's 
immortal  declaration  of  the  rights  of  humanity: 

"Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, 
And  come  it  will  for  a'  that, 

******* 
That  man  to  man  the  warld  o'er. 
Shall  brothers  be  for  a'  that." 


FEDERATION  OF 
SAFETY   FIRST  SOCIETIES  OF  AMERICA 


REMARKS 
AT  THE  FIRST  NATIONAL  CONVENTION, 
DETROIT,    MICHIGAN.  OCTOBER    19,   1915 


NATIONAL  Convention  whose  purpose  is 
to  save  life  and  protect  property  should 
strike  a  welcome  note  in  the  present  dis- 
r  cord  and  terror  of  the  world.  Human  life 
--  seems  so  cheap  these  days!  Property!  Of 
what  use  is  it  now,  except  as  an  instrument  by  which 
more  men  may  be  killed?  Civilization  has  never  pre- 
viously faced  such  conditions.  It  had  come  to  assume 
that  certain  fundamentals  were  established  with  regard 
to  life  and  property,  and  that  the  safety  of  these, 
broadly  speaking,  might  hereafter  be  assumed. 

The  anarchy  that  reigns  to-day — because  it  is  nothing 
less  than  anarchy — was  supposed  only  a  Uttle  while 
ago  to  be  impossible.  To  the  anarchist,  society  has  no 
terms  to  offer  because  he  strikes  at  the  very  foundations 
of  order,  at  the  safety  of  life  and  the  security  of  prop- 
erty. No  plan  of  any  group  of  terrorists  of  which  I 
ever  read  could,  if  unchecked,  have  produced  the 
material  and  moral  ruin  that  the  great  Christian  Sov- 
ereignties of  the  world  have  brought  about  within 
fourteen  months.  It  is  indeed  time  that  a  note  of 
sanity  was  sounded.    The  civilization  of  the  year  1914 


50 


Federation  of  Safety  First  Societies  of  America     51 

was  brilliant,  efficient  in  many  ways,  and  supposedly 
strong,  but  it  is  obvious  now  that  it  had  some  very 
great  defects.  What  was  the  real  foundation  of  that 
civilization?  The  foundation  was  nationalitj'^,  the 
doctrine  of  sovereignty.  It  rested  firmly  on  the  belief 
that  national  preservation,  national  expansion,  national 
integrity  were  the  supreme  good,  the  thing  that  out- 
weighed in  value  millions  of  male  lives,  oceans  of 
women's  tears,  and  billions  of  property.  Unfortunately, 
each  separate  nation  followed  the  same  faith,  and 
followed  it  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rights  of  every 
other  nation.  Civilization  was  a  house  divided  against 
itself. 

If  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  hereafter  squares  itself 
before  the  Court  of  Eternal  Justice,  it  must  be  able  to 
enter  on  the  credit  side  of  the  account  that  which  will 
balance  the  unspeakable  and  immeasurable  debits  which 
Fate  has  entered  against  it  since  August  4,  1914.  Few 
men  can  be  found  anywhere  who  believe  that  nation- 
ality can  ever  thus  justify  itself. 

"Safety  First"  is  the  old  demand  for  social  justice 
in  a  new  form.  It  emphasizes  the  responsibilities  of 
the  indi\'idual  in  the  Democratic  State.  The  greatest 
weakness  of  Democracy,  we  sometimes  think,  lies  in  the 
unwillingness  of  the  individual  to  perform  the  high 
duties  that  attach  to  citizenship  in  a  republic.  Every 
man  is  glad  to  be  free,  glad  to  take  for  himself  all  the 
benefits  that  increasingly  come  to  him  from  a  society 
organized  to  protect  the  individual,  and  also  so  organ- 
ized that  its  appeal  tends  to  make  each  man  stand  on 
his  own  feet  and  do  his  part.  An  even  greater  evil  than 
this  willingness  to  take  and  unwillingness  to  give  lies  in 
the  instinctive  unwillingness  of  man  in  a  Democracy 


52  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

to  trust  other  men  with  power.     By  that  process  we 
gradually  drift  away  from  fundamentals  of  safety. 

If  society  in  a  great  republic  is  to  be  efficient  someone 
must  exercise  great  power.  A  great  nation  cannot  be 
conducted  by  mass  meeting.  The  prime  difference 
between  an  efficient  Autocracy  and  an  efficient  Dem- 
ocracy is  a  question  of  responsible  or  irresponsible 
power.  The  act  of  authority  must  be  substantially  the 
same  in  each  case.  We  have  before  us  now  a  striking 
example  of  this.  A  Star  Chamber  is  conducting  the 
European  war  on  behalf  of  Great  Britain.  A  com- 
mittee of  eight  men  has  been  granted  full  power  to 
carry  on  the  war.  If  Parliament  should  not  meet  until 
peace  is  made,  this  committee  would  make  the  terms 
of  peace  on  behalf  of  the  British  Empire.  A  form  of 
government  that  has  been  detested  by  Enghshmen  for 
centuries  has  been  fearlessly  adopted.  Why?  Because 
the  situation  demands  expert  knowledge  and  quick 
action,  and  the  power  so  lodged  can  be  recalled  at  any 
time;  but  meantime  the  action  of  Mr,  Asquith's  com- 
mittee is  as  autocratic  and  final  as  the  methods  of  the 
Stuarts  or  Tudors.  Englishmen,  by  this  process,  seek 
safety.  The  first  impulse  is  to  save  the  Empire.  In- 
stead of  being  more  autocratic  by  the  appointment  of 
such  a  committee,  England  is  more  truly  democratic 
than  ever  before.  The  impulse  which  led  to  this 
extraordinary  action  was  a  desire  for  safety.  The 
impulse  not  to  trust  men  with  power  lies  in  all  democra- 
cies, and  in  none  more  than  in  our  own.  Our  national 
impulse  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  we  are  still  so 
near  the  time  of  King  George  III  and  his  Ministers. 
We  are  increasingly  inclined  to  forget  that  all  govern- 
mental  power   in   this   country   is   delegated   power, 


Federation  of  Safety  First  Societies  of  America      53 

subject  to  revision  and  recall.  We  reserve  the  right 
to  do  everything  ourselves  more  or  less  directly,  and 
then  we  don't  do  it.  As  a  result  of  this,  we  load  our 
State  Constitutions  with  a  lot  of  legislative  rubbish 
and  our  statutes  with  a  lot  of  foolishness,  and  think 
by  that  process  we  have  preserved  direct  control  of 
affairs  and  done  our  duty. 

But  we  frequently  have  rude  awakenings.  We  dis- 
cover now  and  then  that  things  have  not  gone  ac- 
cording to  our  liking.  We  get  angry  and  upset  the 
whole  program  at  the  polls.  Then  we  go  off  again 
under  the  foolish  delusion  that  having  asserted  our 
direct  authority  everything  will  be  all  right.  We  dis- 
cover a  little  later  that  the  whole  thing  is  again 
wrong,  and  proceed  to  rip  it  up  once  more.  This 
process  extends  from  the  school  district  to  the  White 
House. 

Our  slogan  is  not  "Safety  First"  but  ''Business 
First".  The  result  is  that  the  duties  of  citizenship, 
which  should  come  first,  come  away  down  the  line  for 
most  of  us,  and  in  the  lives  of  some  of  us  it  would  be 
difficult  to  determine  that  they  are  given  any  im- 
portance at  all.  This  makes  the  demagogue's  oppor- 
tunity. Between  the  busy  demagogue  and  the  busy 
business  man  the  doctrine  of  our  safety  and  inalienable 
right  to  hfe,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  gets 
rough  handling.  The  busy  business  man  forgets  about 
these  great  principles  of  safety  and  the  demagogue 
doesn't  care.  Naturally  we  get  just  such  civic  order, 
just  such  administration  as  we  deserve.  Not  long  ago 
the  busy  business  man,  confronted  with  laws  that 
interfered  with  his  purposes,  wasn't  over-nice  in  the 
methods  he  employed  to  get  round  them.     Of  these 


54  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

practices,  however,  he  has  recently  been  more  or  less 
cured. 

You  ask  why  I  inject  these  reflections  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  labors  of  this  Federation?  I  answer 
because  the  sense  of  responsibihty,  the  regard  for  the 
rights  of  others,  the  intense  appreciation  of  the  value 
of  human  life  and  the  desire  for  social  justice,  which 
lie  at  the  very  heart  of  this  movement,  will  help  to 
lift  the  general  conception  of  the  obligations  of  citizen- 
ship to  a  higher  level,  to  a  level  more  in  harmony 
with  the  political  maxims  which  are  the  bases  of  our 
government. 

By  this  assemblage  "Safety  First"  is  to-day  advanced 
from  a  state  to  a  national  motto,  from  a  state  to  a 
national  battle  cry.  It  will  not  achieve  its  full  mission 
until  its  recognition  of  the  value  of  human  life  has  been 
incorporated  into  and  controls  the  authority  which,  let 
us  hope,  is  at  no  very  distant  date  to  regulate  and 
direct  the  relations  of  the  international  world. 

The  very  centre  of  the  doctrine  of  this  Federation 
and  its  allied  Societies  is  the  value  of  human  life.  Its 
plea  is:  "Be  careful."  Why?  Because  you  represent 
in  yourself  the  value  that  gives  all  other  things  value. 
"Safety  First"  means  that  there  is  something  in  society 
vastly  more  important  than  success,  more  desirable 
than  efficiency.  If  human  life  is  to  be  jeopardized  by 
haste,  don't  hurry.  If  human  life  is  to  be  sacrificed  by 
speeding  up  efficiency,  be  less  efficient.  If  the  human 
body  is  to  be  maimed  or  destroyed  in  order  to  secure 
speed  and  power,  get  'along  with  less  speed  and  less 
power.  This  doctrine  is  not  merely  sentimental,  it  is 
more  than  a  reflection  of  the  woe  and  heart-break  that 
follows  the  cruel  strokes  of  industry  and  traffic. 


Federation  of  Safety  Fust  Societies  of  America     55 

On  business  considerations  alone  it  is  to  be  rated 
among  the  soundest  and  sanest  movements  started 
within  our  time. 

We  have  long  been  responding  to  the  impulse  which 
lies  back  of  this  movement,  but  we  have  been  working 
at  the  wrong  end  of  the  problem.  Consider  what  we 
constantly  do  when  appeal  is  made  on  behalf  of  the 
inefficient.  We  tax  ourselves  both  privately  and 
through  established  authority  in  order  to  preserve  and 
protect  lives  that  have  always  been  useless,  or  through 
some  industrial  stroke  or  accident  have  become  useless. 
We  tax  ourselves  to  take  care  of  the  insane  and  we  look 
in  a  sort  of  haphazard  way  after  the  criminal  classes. 
But  when  we  face  the  conffict  of  life,  we  change  our 
whole  point  of  view.  Our  goal  is  success  and  not 
safety,  and  success  as  a  goal  is  a  fine  thing;  but  in  the 
eagerness  of  our  quest  we  strike  right  and  left,  we  charge, 
and  if  in  the  process  we  have  stricken  somebody  down, 
or  trampled  on  somebody,  or  gravely  crippled  ourselves, 
we  find  it  out  usually  when  it  is  too  late.  Through 
haste,  through  following  the  fighting  instinct,  through 
utter  concentration  of  our  work  we  probably  destroy 
needlessly  and  unintentionally  more  value  in  the  pro- 
cess of  production  than  we  restore  afterwards  by  all 
our  public  and  private  charities. 

"Safety  First",  therefore,  is  good  business.  "Safety 
First"  means  that  no  business  achievement  is  worth 
while  that  needlessly  sacrifices  human  life.  This 
Federation  cannot  wholly  stop  the  slaughter  that  now 
takes  place  daily  upon  the  streets  of  most  of  our  cities. 
The  vicissitudes  of  life  will  continue  to  take  their  toll, 
but  the  immediate  purposes  of  this  organization  will 
not  have  been  achieved  until  the  murder  of  children 


56  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

and  the  maiming  and  killing  of  the  efficient  has  been 
reduced  to  a  minimum. 

"But",  someone  says,  "WHiy  a  national  organiza- 
tion? Why  a  Federation?  Why  not  trust  the  matter 
to  the  fine  Societies  that  have  sprung  up  in  Detroit, 
New  York,  Boston,  New  Orleans,  Portland  Oregon, 
and  in  many  other  of  our  larger  cities?"  I  answer  that 
a  Federal  organization  is  needed  because  the  question 
is  more  than  local.  The  same  sort  of  conditions  prevail 
everywhere.  The  same  reckless  disregard  of  the  value 
of  human  life  exists  everywhere,  and  the  same  sort  of 
accidents  happen  everywhere,  except  that  they  are 
more  frequent  and  deadly  in  some  places.  Moreover, 
the  whole  problem  inamediately  takes  us  into  the  realm 
of  interstate  relations  and  the  labor  of  those  that  seek 
this  reform  necessarily  touches  Federal  authority  and 
must  seek  its  co-operation.  Then,  too,  this  is  not  a 
political  but  a  humanitarian  project  and  human  rights 
and  needs  are  not  limited  by  state  lines.  There  are  no 
questions  of  state  rights  to  trouble  us.  We  are  business 
men  and  men  connected  with  ci\'ic  administration,  or 
representing  it.  We  do  not  seek  power  or  profit  or 
honor.  We  are  dedicating  some  of  our  time  and  some 
of  our  means  to  a  purely  unselfish  effort,  the  purpose 
of  which  is  to  save  human  life  and  preserve  property. 
A  little  group  of  men,  practically  all  of  whom  are 
here,  but  none  of  whom  I  shall  now  name,  have  been 
the  leaders  in  promoting  the  Federal  movement.  I 
shall  venture  to  be  so  nearly  personal  as  to  say  that 
but  for  the  whole-hearted  support  of  certain  dis- 
tinguished citizens  of  this  city,  and  indeed  but  for  the 
cordial  attitude  of  the  city  itself,  this  movement 
might  not  have  taken  form  for  some  time  to  come. 


Federation  of  Safety  First  Societies  of  America     57 

I  don't  know  how  I  became  President  of  this  Federa- 
tion. I  was  told  to  take  it  one  day  by  a  man  whom  I 
dared  not  disobey,  and  so  here  I  am.  I  expect  always 
to  be  proud  of  the  fact  that  I  had  some  part  in  helping 
to  nationalize  a  movement  that  calls  men  back  from  the 
ruthless  pursuit  of  mere  success  and  reminds  them  that 
any  process  by  which  life  is  wasted  is  unfit  to  survive, 
and  any  process  that  unnecessarilj^  destroys  value, 
whether  that  value  be  in  property  or  life,  is  bad  business. 

The  Safety  First  Federation  represents  a  national 
effort  to  correct  some  of  the  moral  and  economic  errors 
of  so-called  efficiency.  The  slogan  ''Safety  First" 
means  be  rational  if  you  would  he  efficient. 

The  Federation  aims  to  deal  T\ith  the  relations  of 
society  and  government  at  the  particular  points  where 
the  problems  of  life  are  most  difficult  and  the  struggle 
is  most  intense.  It  seeks  to  remind  men  that  human 
life  is  still  the  one  thing  in  the  world  of  real  value  and 
that  to  squander  it  in  any  interests  is  not  only  morally 
and  economically  unsound,  but  is  almost  certain  to 
result  in  utter  inefficiency. 

Stand  any  day  for  an  hour  at  Fifth  Avenue  and  42d 
Street,  or  at  Times  Square  in  the  later  evening,  or  at 
any  of  a  dozen  other  places  in  New  York,  and  observe 
the  inefficiency  achieved  by  the  blind  driving  at  so- 
called  efficiency.  Notwithstanding  the  high  flexibility 
of  the  automobile,  notwithstanding  strict  traffic  regu- 
lations and  an  army  of  efficient  policemen,  you 
observe  a  chaos  of  inefficiency..  Traffic  crawls.  The 
bob-tailed  horse  car  of  twenty-five  years  ago  made 
better  progress  than  the  powerful  modern  machines 
whose  energies  are  necessarily  repressed  by  the  crush 
of  traffic.     Incidentally  great  peril  to  life  and  limb 


58  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

attaches  to  these  conditions  as  the  mounting  totals  of 
street  accidents,  fatal  and  otherwise,  annually  show. 

The  efficiency  of  the  automobile  puts  it  centuries 
ahead  of  the  theories  on  which  cities  are  built.  Cities 
are  now  built  fundamentally  much  as  they  were  two 
thousand  years  ago.  The  pressure  of  modern  energy 
has  produced  the  sky-scraper  and  the  automobile, — 
both  absolutely  at  war  with  the  traffic  capacity  of  any 
city.  The  purpose  of  each  is  efficiency.  The  result  is 
increasing  inefficiency.  No  one  thought  out  in  advance 
how  a  municipality  could  be  constructed  to  utilize  the 
pent-up  capacity  of  both  these  modern  developments. 
Existing  municipalities  cannot  be  reconstructed.  We 
are  obliged  to  tinker  with  the  old  plan  and  fit  it  to  the 
new  conditions.  So  we  build  subways  and  lay  the 
burden  of  their  cost  on  future  generations  without 
proper  tax  discrimination  with  regard  to  the  huge 
increment  of  value,  unearned,  which  the  new  con- 
ditions have  created.  Here  has  been  and  is  an  utter 
disregard  of  reason  and  of  safety.  All  this  muddle  in 
the  streets  of  our  modern  cities  involves  peril  to  fife 
and  peril  to  efficiency.  Efficiency  that  does  not  rest 
on  a  clearly  thought  out  program,  on  safety,  almost 
certainly  defeats  its  own  purpose. 

Our  plea  which  puts  the  human  unit  above  so-called 
efficiency  involves  more  than  a  humanitarian  impulse. 
It  ultimately  shows  the  only  way  to  true  efficiency. 
No  material  gain,  no  enormously  increased  output 
which  reaches  its  goal  over  mangled  Umbs  and  dead 
bodies  is  worth  while.  It  not  only  represents  loss  of 
moral  appreciation  which  means  degeneration,  but  it 
ultimately  leads  to  chaos  and  enormous  loss. 


Federation  of  Safety  First  Societies  of  America     59 

Suppose  the  peoples  and  rulers  of  the  world  on  the 
first  of  August,  1914,  instead  of  plunging  into  war,  had 
first  thought  their  problems  out.  Suppose  they  had 
first  surveyed  the  splendid  condition  of  the  world  at 
that  time  and  said:  "This  must  be  preserved  at  all 
hazards.  This  has  cost  a  million  years  of  toil,  miUions 
of  lives,  and  billions  of  treasure.  The  ambitions  of 
this  people  or  that  people  realized  may  or  may  not  lead 
to  a  better  condition.  For  these  ambitions  and  ideals 
to  become  dominant  as  against  the  ambitions  and 
ideals  of  other  peoples  means  certainly  immeasurable 
sufifering  and  loss.  Whether  anything  would  thereby 
be  gained  at  all  commensurate  with  that  suffering  and 
loss  is  more  than  problematical.  Our  duty  is  clearly 
to  save  what  we  have,  to  be  safe  first." 

Safety  and  reason  would  have  been  almost  inter- 
changeable terms  in  such  reflections.  But  the  European 
world  was  as  illogical  in  the  solution  of  its  international 
problems  as  New  York  has  been  in  soh-ing  the  problems 
of  its  development.  The  great  European  sovereignties, 
when  steam  and  electricity  had  eliminated  time  and 
distance,  each  asserting  unconditioned  sovereignty, 
became  the  sky-scrapers  in  the  cosmopolis  of  inter- 
national relations.  They  were  thrust  in  upon  each  other 
under  irreconcilable  and  hostile  conditions.  New  York 
and  other  American  cities  have  been  and  are  faced  with 
kindred  conditions  on  a  smaller  scale.  Owners  of 
property  in  lower  Manhattan  and  elsewhere  were 
allowed  to  build  almost  at  will.  They  had  little  more 
regard  for  the  natural  right  of  their  fellows  to  light  and 
air  and  a  place  to  stand  on  the  street,  than  nations  had 
for  other  nations,  in  their  greed  for  power,  in  their 
blind  determination  to  survive  and  succeed  at  any  cost. 


60  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Appalling  conditions  followed  in  both  cases.  The 
average  citizen  must  now  pay  the  cost  of  this  civic 
blundering.  The  people  of  Europe  are  now  paying  the 
appalling  cost  of  Governmental  folly.  Nationality  has 
for  a  hundred  years  as  clearly  foreshadowed  this  world 
cataclysm  as  the  sky-scraper  foretold  conditions  in 
New  York.  No  one  in  either  case  thought  the  problem 
out,  or  if  anyone  did  the  public  didn't  understand  it. 
Human  life  is  worth  more  than  all  the  Republics, 
Kaisers,  Kings  and  Czars.  What  consideration  was 
given  to  human  life  when  this  European  struggle  began? 
Absolutely  none.  Life  became  the  cheapest  thing  in 
the  world.  Pick  up  any  English  illustrated  paper  and 
see  the  endless  portraits  of  fine  young  men  who,  as  the 
papers  put  it,  are  ''dead  on  the  field  of  honor".  The 
same  is  true  in  Germany  and  in  France  and  in  all  the 
belligerent  countries.  The  best  on  each  side  have 
killed  the  best  on  the  other  side,  and  each  side  is  proud 
of  its  deed.  What  has  really  happened?  Merely  that 
the  true  issue  was  lost  sight  of,  real  values  were  ignored. 
Sovereignty  was  exalted  into  the  supreme  good.  In  a 
world  shrunk  to  the  point  where  from  the  standpoint 
of  human  life  there  were  no  foreign  lands  men  were 
persuaded  to  resort  to  the  savage  theories  that  the  cave 
man  followed.  The  people — considered  as  people  and 
not  as  patriots — had  advanced  far  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  true  values,  but  under  the  pressure  of  antiquated 
ideas  and  false  leadership,  they  suddenly  turned  to 
the  defense  of  lesser  values,  to  the  maintenance  of 
nationality  which  is  after  all  only  an  instrumentality  of 
life  and  not  an  end.  For  two  years  they  have  squan- 
dered with  sickening  prodigality  the  most  precious 
thing  in  the  world.    Now  the  very  thing  they  defended 


Federation  of  Safety  First  Societies  of  America      61 

with  such  heroism  and  at  such  fearful  cost  is  itself  in 
deadly  peril.  The  efficiency  which  was  supposed  to 
lie  in  nationality  has  become  the  chaos  of  war.  Instead 
of  achieving  the  thing  sought  men  have  gone  back  to 
savagery.  The  automobile,  without  a  program,  without 
reason,  without  safety,  has  made  Fifth  Avenue  im- 
passable and  recreated  archaic  conditions.  Civilization, 
without  a  program,  without  \'ision,  without  appreciation 
of  true  values,  has,  seeking  efficiency,  not  only  reverted 
to  inefficiency^  but  to  unbefievable  brutaUty  and 
cruelty,  to  hatreds  as  bitter  as  death,  to  conditions 
resulting  from  destroyed  vitality  and  piled  up  debts 
which  will  modify  the  achievements  of  the  human  race 
for  centuries  to  come. 

Safety  First  means  Humanitj^  First. 

WTiat  will  it  ultimately  cost  New  York  to  solve  her 
existing  traffic  problems,  if  indeed  they  are  solvable? 
What  would  New  York  have  saved  in  money,  time, 
lives  and  power  if  she  had  long  ago  limited  the  heights 
of  her  buildings,  long  ago  controlled  the  location  of 
industries  and  trade?  WTiat  will  it  cost  the  world  to 
solve  the  problems  of  this  war,  if  indeed  they  are 
solvable?  What  would  Europe  have  saved  if  it  had 
recognized  that  the  interests  of  the  people  under  the 
new  conditions  created  by  modern  science  are  as 
utterly  at  war  with  existing  international  relations  as 
the  automobile  and  sky-scraper  are  with  the  traffic 
capacity  of  an  ordinary  street? 

This  Federation  has  no  private  ambitions  to  serve. 
This  unfortunately  is  a  time  when  the  voice  of  altruism 
sounds  but  faintly  in  the  din  aroused  by  the  clash  of 
terrific  national  and  industrial  forces. 


62  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  Federation  is  ready  to  join  hands  with  every 
kindred  movement  which  seeks  to  remind  men  that 
any  process  by  which  the  world  is  gained  and  the  soul 
is  lost  is  a  bad  process,  that  any  program  that  ignores 
the  superlative  value  of  human  life  must  lead  finally 
to  disaster. 


DEMOCRACY  vs.  SOVEREIGNTY 


AN  AFTER  DINNER  RESPONSE 

DELIVERED  NOVEMBER  18,  1915,  AT  THE  147th  ANNUAL  BANQUET 

OF  THE  CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE  STATE  OF 

NEW  YORK,  WALDORF-ASTORIA,  NEW  YORK 


NTO  the  terror  and  chaos  which  to-day  mis- 
rule the  greater  part  of  the  world  certain 
questions  are  increasingly  thrusting  them- 
selves: (1)  What  was  the  fundamental  error 
in  ci\dlization  on  August  1,  1914?  (2)  What 
fundamental  change  must  be  made  in  order  to  correct 
that  error? 

Of  written  and  spoken  answers  to  the  first  question 
there  is  no  end.  Answers  to  the  second  question  are 
naturally  fewer,  because  the  facts  necessary  to  coherent 
thinking  cannot  be  arrived  at  until  the  first  question 
has  been  answered. 

All  the  peoples  of  all  the  warring  countries  believe 
their  cause  is  just,  that  they  are  fighting  defensively 
for  their  existence.  And  the  paradox  of  it  is  that  all 
these  beliefs  are  true.  They  are  all  fighting  for  existence 
and  for  fatherland. 

I  heard  Dr.  Bernhard  Dernburg  say  in  the  early  days 
of  the  conflict,  defending  Germany  for  her  invasion  of 
Belgium,  that  the  act  was  a  necessity,  that  a  nation 
could  not  be  expected  to  consent  to  its  own  destruction. 
Commenting  on  our  last  and  formal  protest  to  Great 
Britain,  against  what  we  deem  her  \'iolation  of  Inter- 

63 


64  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

national  law,  and  her  disregard  of  the  rights  of  neutrals, 
one  of  the  great  London  dailies,  justifying  England's 
determination  to  retain  control  of  the  seas  at  all  hazards, 
said  '*A  nation  cannot  be  expected  to  commit  suicide". 

These  expressions  from  either  side,  almost  identical 
in  phraseology  and  absolutely  identical  in  philosophy, 
reflect  the  existence  of  a  cause  of  war  not  often  referred 
to,  under  the  compulsion  of  which  however  the  whole 
world  rests  to-day. 

The  flames  which  burst  into  a  world  conflagration 
fifteen  months  ago  were  not  only  already  burning  under 
cover  fiercely  everywhere  in  Europe,  but  unquestion- 
ably were  lighted,  unquenchably  lighted  when  world 
civilization  based  on  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  began 
to  take  form  centuries  ago. 

The  civihzation  of  1914  rested  on  that  doctrine. 
And  what  is  sovereignty?  Sovereignty  is  final  authority, 
the  thing  greater  than  the  law,  that  indeed  protects 
the  law.  Sovereignty  is  the  highest  expression  of 
authority  in  a  ci\dlized  state,  not  inferior  however  to 
the  authority  of  any  other  sovereignty,  be  that  sover- 
eignty physically  greater  or  smaller,  and  not  qualified 
in  its  completeness  by  any  other  power. 

This  is  the  language  of  sheer  authority,  and  sover- 
eignty is  the  doctrine  of  authority.  Democracy  can 
no  more  live  in  its  atmosphere  than  Jefferson's  theory 
of  inalienable  rights  can  live  in  a  world  ruled  by  42- 
centimetre  guns  and  superdreadnoughts.  Its  demands 
are  such  that  peace  is  now  only  a  period  of  preparation 
for  war.  If  any  branch  of  human  endeavor  is  anywhere 
developed  along  purely  commercial  lines,  it  is  almost 
certain  ultimately  to  be  held  an  error.  Highways 
should  be  built  for  military  purposes;  railroads  should 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  65 

primarily  be  planned  to  transport  armies ;  ships  of  com- 
merce should  be  so  constructed  that  they  can  be  con- 
verted quickly  into  cruisers  or  transports.  In  obedience 
to  the  demands  of  sovereignty,  the  shadow  of  war  rests 
over  us  at  all  times. 

At  the  very  outset  sovereignty  assumes  that  it 
must  ultimately  fight,  that  war  is  its  true  explanation, 
and,  therefore,  it  reserves  the  right  to  take  the  last 
dollar  of  its  citizens  or  subjects,  and,  if  necessary, 
to  demand  the  sacrifice  of  their  lives  as  well.  The 
favorite  phrase  of  sovereignty  runs  this  wise:  ''In 
defense  of  our  liberties  and  our  soil  we  will  fight  to 
the  last  man." 

Whatever  the  form  of  government,  the  sentiment 
is  the  same.  Behind  that  sentiment  and  in  obedience 
to  its  necessities  the  prejudices,  the  provinciaHsms, 
the  misconceptions,  the  hates,  the  fears,  and  the  am- 
bitions that  so  bitterly  divide  nations,  were  born.  On 
the  first  of  August,  1914,  they  had  grown  to  uncon- 
trollable proportions. 

Add  to  these  conditions  the  fact  that  we  were  living 
in  the  age  of  electricity,  when  the  impalpable  and 
imponderable  ether  had  become  not  a  dead  wall  but 
a  shining  highway  through  infinite  space,  when  the 
spoken  word  was  seized  by  a  messenger  whose  speed 
and  orbit  far  outreached  the  imagination  of  the  people 
who  kept  and  guarded  for  uncounted  centuries  that 
glorious  word  picture  finally  expressed  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  and  the  conclusion  is  inevitable, — 
in  such  an  age,  and  in  a  world  so  small  a  civilization 
based  on  eight  great  aggressive  unyielding  uncon- 
ditioned sovereignties  was  no  more  possible  without 

5 


66  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

war  than  that  two  soHd  bodies  should  occupy  the  same 
space  at  the  same  time  under  the  laws  of  physics. 

Unconditioned  sovereignty  was  the  fundamental  error 
in  civilization. 

A  striking  feature  of  this  war  is  that  its  divisions  do 
not  follow  the  usual  Hues  of  cleavage.  Neither  race 
nor  color  nor  religion  are  primarily  responsible  for  the 
conditions  in  Europe,  nor  for  the  cataclysm  which  has 
occurred.  Christians  are  fighting  Christians;  Jews  are 
killing  Jews;  Moslems  are  against  Moslems;  whites  are 
murdering  whites;  men  of  color  are  fighting  their  kind. 
Saxons  are  fighting  their  own  breed;  Slavs  are  against 
Slavs.  The  special  favor  of  the  God  of  the  Christians 
is  blasphemously  claimed  by  both  sides. 

The  ordinary  causes  of  war  had  unquestionably  de- 
creased on  August  1,  1914,  but  the  hope  which  that 
fact  held  out  to  many  of  us  proved  finally  to  be  a 
false  hope.  In  the  impact  of  unyielding  sovereignties, 
in  the  fear  which  created  a  race  in  armaments,  in  the 
belief  that  national  preservation  was  the  supreme  duty 
and  sovereignty^  the  supreme  good,  there  was  abundant 
fuel  for  the  fires  already  lighted.  The  conflagration 
was  certain.  Every  new  invention  by  which  time  and 
space  were  annihilated,  presumably  bringing  humanity 
increased  comfort  and  safety  and  happiness  and  eflfi- 
ciency,  served  even  more  markedly  to  increase  inter- 
national friction.  Sovereignties  were  jammed  together; 
they  met  everjrwhere;  they  jostled  each  other  on  every 
sea;  they  crowded  each  other  even  in  desert  places. 
They  had  no  law  by  which  they  could  five  together. 
They  could  have  none.  Each  was  itself  the  law.  When, 
therefore,  through  the  ehmination  of  indi\ddual  pre- 
judices and  provinciahsms  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  67 

conquest  of  time  and  distance  on  the  other,  the  world 
had  reached  a  point  where  human  brotherhood  was 
conceivably  attainable,  humanity  found  itself  in  the 
clutch  of  this  monster  called  sovereignty.  Then  came 
the  tragedy!  Not  alone  in  squandered  life  and  property, 
but  in  missing  the  great  moment  prepared  through 
centuries  of  human  fidelity  and  suffering,  the  moment 
when  humanity  was  prepared  to  see  itself  through  eyes 
suffused  with  sympathy  and  understanding  rather  than 
as  now  through  eyes  bUnded  by  hate  and  blood-lust. 
The  people  of  the  various  great  powers  of  the  world 
in  1914  in  fundamentals  were  not  dissimilar.  Never 
in  the  story  of  man's  evolution  had  he  been  so  nearly 
homogeneous.  Everywhere  he  had  approached  com- 
mon standards.  His  dress  was  much  the  same  over 
most  of  the  Christian  world,  and  this  uniformity  had 
even  made  headway  against  the  ancient  prejudices  of 
the  Orient.  He  thought  much  the  same  everywhere. 
His  standards  of  justice  were  strikingly  alike.  He  was 
kindly  and  merciful.  His  vision  reached  far  beyond 
the  borders  of  his  own  land,  and  he  was  beginning  to 
understand  that  all  men  are  brave  and  should  be 
brothers.  The  various  instrumentalities  that  brought 
all  peoples  severally  face  to  face,  that  promised  still 
further  to  increase  understanding  and  sympathy  and 
therefore  the  prospect  of  peace,  unhappily  and  finally 
had  just  the  opposite  effect.  Men  grew  in  international 
sympathy;  sovereignties  did  not.  Men  dropped  their 
prejudices;  governments  did  not.  The  rigid  barriers 
which  geographically  delimit  nations  became  more 
rigid  and  more  unyielding  as  individual  knowledge 
grew  and  common  sympathy  spread.  The  light  that 
penetrated  to  the  individual  and  banished  his  bigotry 


68  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

could  not  penetrate  national  barriers  as  such.  Its 
effect  indeed  was  not  to  banish  the  darkness,  but  to 
cast  deeper  shadows.  The  condition  that  made  men 
gentle  made  nations  harsh;  the  impulse  that  drew  the 
peoples  of  the  world  together  drove  sovereignties  apart. 
The  movement  which  foreshadowed  a  democratic 
world,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  meant  the  end  of  the 
existing  international  order,  and  sovereignty  instinct- 
ively knew  and  feared  that. 

So  far  as  governments  would  permit,  men  made 
world-wide  rules  of  action.  They  traded  together 
internationally  when  tariffs  allowed.  They  joined  in 
great  co-operative  movements  where  race  and  creed 
and  all  the  usual  distinctions  that  separate  men  were 
ignored — ignored  because  men  found  when  they  came 
face  to  face  that  the  old  hates  and  prejudices  were 
based  on  lies.  The  units  of  humanity  became  homo- 
geneous; the  units  of  ci^^Uzation,  the  great  sovereign- 
ties did  not.  Here  were  two  irreconcilable  conditions. 
Sovereignties  were  in  desperate  straits.  Each,  menaced 
by  every  other,  assumed  that  its  integrity  must  be 
preserved  at  any  cost.  None  was  able  to  change  its 
point  of  view;  none  was  permitted  to  qualify  its  attitude 
toward  other  sovereignties,  because  each  feared,  as 
Shakespeare  puts  it,  that 

"To  show  less  sovereignty  than  they,  must  need 
Appear  less  King-Uke.'" 

No  sovereignty  except  that  of  Germany  saw,  fully, 
what  this  meant.  Germany  saw  it  long  ago.  Sovereignty 
from  the  beginning  meant  ultimate  world-dominion  by 
some  nation.     It  could  mean  nothing  less. 

This  explains  why  the  splendidly  efficient  machines 
of  modern  civihzation,  moving,  from  the  standpoint  of 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  69 

the  individual,  co-operatively,  happily  and  helpfully 
under  the  guidance  of  powerfully  advancing  human 
sympathy,  were  on  the  first  of  August,  1914,  suddenly 
swerved  by  the  savagery  of  unregulated  internation- 
ality  and  sent  crashing  into  each  other.  How  complete 
the  ruin  of  that  collision  no  one  can  yet  tell!  What  was 
destroyed,  or  is  to  be  destroyed,  is  not  yet  clear.  Was 
it  democracy?  Or  was  it  sovereignty?  The  ultimate 
destruction  of  one  or  the  other  is  probable.  World 
peace  is  possible  under  either,  but  not  under  both. 

Out  of  this  hideous  ruin  will  sovereignty  ultimately 
arise  rehabilitated  and  increasingly  aggressive?  Will  a 
group  of  Powers  finally  emerge  substantially  victorious 
and  will  the  Controlling  Power  of  that  group  by  per- 
fectly logical  processes  gradually  make  its  civilization 
dominant  over  the  whole  world?  That  is  the  only 
process  by  which  sovereignty  can  ever  bring  per- 
manent peace.  So  long  as  there  are  even  two  great 
unconditioned  sovereignties  in  the  world,  there  can  be 
no  lasting  peace. 

Or  is  it  possible  that  out  of  the  ruin  will  come  the 
revolt  of  humanity?  Will  a  real  Demos  appear?  A 
Democracy  that  has  no  frontiers,  the  Democracy  of 
Humanity?  Remembering  not  only  the  slaughter  of 
1914  and  1915,  but  the  program  of  slaughter  followed 
all  through  the  Christian  era,  will  the  people  say  with 
young  Clifford  in  Henry  VI : 

"Oh  War,  thou  Son  of  Hell." 

Is  it  conceivable  that  they  may  say  to  sovereignty— 

"You  have  in  some  things  served  us  well  in  ages 
passed.  You  have  awakened  in  us  heroic  aspira- 
tions and  led  us  to  noble  achievements;  but  now, 
alas!   your   hands    drip   with    innocent   blood,    you 


70  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

are  guilty  of  deeds  which  the  beasts  of  the  jungle 
would  not  commit — deeds  that  show  you  to  be 
inherently  and  necessarily,  in  the  present  condi- 
tion of  the  world,  the  arch  enemj^  of  the  human 
race,  and  therefore  we  must  now  fundamentally 
modify  your  demands." 

Milton,  in  the  Sixth  Book  of  Paradise  Lost,  tells 
how  Satan,  rebeUious,  and  all  his  hosts,  after  a  terrific 
struggle,  threw  themselves  headlong 

''Down  from  the  verge  of  Heaven." 

He  tells  us,  too,  how  the  Almighty  stayed  his  own 
hand  because 

Not  to  destroy,  but  root  them  out  of  Heaven." 

Flanders  and  Poland  tell  a  tale  of  horror,  record  the 
use  of  machines  and  instruments  of  destruction,  register 
a  story  of  cruelty  and  hate,  such  as  even  the  ]\Iiltonic 
imagination  did  not  compass.  The  Satanic  crew  now 
busy  in  Europe,  whether  their  blood  guilt  is  the  result  of 
dynastic  and  race  ambitions  or,  as  I  believe,  the  prod- 
uct of  forces  beyond  their  control,  must  in  hke  fashion 
be  cast  out  if  we  are  ever  to  have  peace  in  this  world. 

That  process  will  raise  profound  issues  here.  The 
Trans-Atlantic  problem  includes  more  than  hes  on  the 
surface.  What  indeed  of  democracy?  Will  it  again 
be  strangled  as  it  was  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  a 
century  ago,  under  the  leadership  of  Austria  and 
Prince  Metternich?  We  are  involved  because  if  de- 
mocracy has  a  future  in  Europe,  it  will  largely  be  the 
result  of  its  triumph  here — a  condition  that  ]\Ietternich 
and  his  fellow  reactionaries  did  not  have  to  face. 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  71 

For  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  years  of  organized 
Hfe,  and  indeed  through  all  the  years  since  the  settle- 
ment of  Jamestown  and  the  landing  at  Plymouth, 
America  has  been  the  beneficiary  of  the  human  race. 
Wrapped  in  her  all  but  impenetrable  isolation,  beyond 
the  reach  of  dynastic  ambition,  and  until  recently 
substantially  beyond  the  impact  of  other  sovereignties, 
and  therefore  measurably  unaffected  by  internationality 
and  its  savagery,  she  has  taken  to  her  bosom  the  rest- 
less, the  wronged,  the  adventurous,  the  bold,  the  brave 
— of  all  lands,  indeed  she  has  gathered  into  her  fertile 
soil  seed  sifted  from  all  the  world. 

Our  country  has  not  been  unworthy  of  the  oppor- 
tunitj^  With  all  her  blundering,  she  has  done  well; 
and  whether  she  is  now  to  be  branded  as  selfish  after 
all  depends  on  what  she  clearly  stands  for  when  this 
war  closes.  One  great  thing  she  has  done — perhaps 
the  greatest  democratic  thing  that  men  have  ever 
done.  She  has  shown  how  so-called  sovereign  states 
can  be  merged  into  a  larger  state  without  losing  their 
individuaUty  and  without  parting  with  democratic 
principles.  She  has  shown  how  local  citizenships 
can  coalesce  into  a  master  citizenship  and  yet  remain 
vital.  But,  unless  we  misread  the  signs  of  Fate,  she 
is  now  nearing  the  period  when  she  must  do  more 
than  that,  or  prove  herself  recreant,  show  herself  an 
unworthy  beneficiary. 

Before  considering  what  we  should  do  in  the  in- 
terest of  humanit}^  what  we  should  do  to  discharge 
our  obligation  and  our  duty,  let  us  consider  what  we 
should  do  at  once,  not  as  a  measure  of  philanthropy 
but  as  a  measure  of  safety. 


72  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

First,  we  should  arm,  and  arm  adequately;  not  be- 
cause we  believe  in  that  theory  of  government,  we  do 
not,  we  hate  it;  nor  because  we  beHeve  in  that  method 
of  setthng  international  difficulties,  but  because  we 
must  at  all  hazards  protect  this  home  of  democracy 
from  the  Satanic  brood  which,  driven  from  Heaven, 
apparently  fell  in  Flanders  and  Poland. 

Second,  we  must  at  the  same  time  try  at  least  to 
show  that  we  are  as  great  as  Fate  has  decreed  that 
we  may  be. 

"But  specifically",  you  ask,  "what  should  we  do"? 

We  should  signify  our  willingness  to  meet  rep- 
resentatives of  all  the  considerable  powers  of  the  world 
in  an  International  Congress,  the  purpose  of  which 
shall  be  similar  to  that  of  the  Convention  which  met 
in  Philadelphia  in  1787.  That  Convention  met  in  the 
historic  mansion  where  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  signed.  Those  two  great  assemblages,  the  second 
no  less  than  the  first,  have  made  the  words  "Inde- 
pendence Hall",  in  the  imagination  of  the  plain  people 
of  all  the  world,  to  shine  hke  the  Di\ine  Presence  over 
the  Mercy  Seat. 

We  should  in  that  Congress  stand  for  the  civilizing 
and  humanizing  of  international  relations  by  whatever 
steps  may  be  necessary.  If  to  do  that  the  present 
doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty  must  be  aban- 
doned, if  as  a  nation  we  must  surrender  what  each 
Colony  seemed  to  surrender  in  1789,  we  should  stand 
for  that.  We  should  find  when  the  time  came — as  our 
fathers  did — that  we  had  actually  surrendered  only  a 
little  false  pride,  a  Uttle  hate,  a  Httle  prejudice  and  a 
little  fear,  and  had  entered,  as  the  Colonies  did,  upon 
the  only  Order  that  leads  to  peace  and  true  greatness. 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  73 

If  such  a  program  were  presented  to  the  stricken 
people  of  Europe  at  this  war's  close,  it  probably  would 
not  raise  any  larger  problem  than  Washington  and 
Frankhn  and  Aladison  and  Hamilton  faced  in  1787. 
The  whole  civilized  world  is  no  larger  nor  more  obsessed 
by  prejudice  than  the  Colonies  were  then.  You  re- 
member how  bitterly  they  hated  each  other.  Perhaps 
you  recall  what  Mr.  James  Bryce  says  in  his  "American 
Commonwealth",  viz:  that  if  the  people  of  the  Colonies 
had  voted  directly  on  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  it  would  not  have  been  adopted. 

You  certainly  recall  that  New  York  State  was 
against  it,  and  the  Convention  called  to  vote  on  it 
was  hostile  until  Alexander  Hamilton  compelled  ac- 
ceptance by  the  force  of  his  logic  and  eloquence.  We 
narrowly  missed  reverting  to  political  chaos. 

John  Fiske  calls  the  years  between  the  Peace  of 
Paris  and  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
the  critical  period  of  American  history.  So  indeed 
it  was.  During  that  period  prejudice  was  put  aside, 
jealousies  were  overcome,  hatreds  were  forgotten,  and 
the  common  aims  of  the  people,  their  natural  sympathy, 
their  homogeneity,  were  gathered  up  into  a  triumphant 
democracy. 

No  exact  figures  are  available,  but  the  population 
of  the  European  states  now  at  war — excluding  Japan, 
Turkey,  Asiatic  Russia,  and  the  Balkans — was  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  approximately 
the  same  as  the  population  of  the  United  States  now. 
Our  territory,  geographically,  is  about  equal  to  that 
of  the  countries  I  have  included. 

At  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars  the  people  of 
Europe  expected  a  new  order  and  the  end  of  war.    They 


74  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

looked  for  the  United  States  of  Europe.  Metternieh 
and  his  associates  denied  that  hope  and  so  readjusted 
continental  Europe  as  to  strangle  democracy.  But  the 
dream  of  the  people  was  borne  over  seas  and  the  United 
States  of  America  in  1915  is  the  colossal  fact  which 
damns  the  continental  sovereignties  of  1815,  and  points 
the  way  to  a  regenerated  Europe. 

Emerging  from  this  hopeless,  senseless,  and  desperate 
struggle,  the  people  of  Europe  will  desire  democracy 
as  never  before.  They  first  brought  democracy  to  us. 
Shall  we  now  take  it  back  to  them? 

We  shall  not,  of  course,  reach  the  ultimate  goal  at 
one  bound.  A  world  state  modelled  after  our  Federal 
Constitution  may  be  a  long  way  off,  but  a  real  beginning 
would  be  a  transcendent  achievement.  Ex-President 
Taft's  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  with  its  modest  sug- 
gestion of  a  modified  sovereignty,  if  achieved  would  be 
worth  centuries  of  European  diplomacy. 

We  did  not  ourselves  achieve  peace  immediately 
after  1789,  nor  a  national  citizenship,  but  after  our 
feet  were  once  fairly  set  in  the  way  of  the  Constitution, 
the  people  would  not  be  denied.  Once  the  people  of 
Europe  feel  their  feet  firmly  set  upon  a  road  that  leads 
away  from  the  savagery  which  now  commands  them, 
away  from  the  slaughter  which  periodically  claims  their 
sons,  from  the  shame  that  claims  their  daughters,  no 
dynastic  or  demagogic  ambition  can  indefinitely  deny 
them  the  achievement  of  the  civic  brotherhood  which 
is  the  glory  of  America. 

The  people  of  Europe  are  not  essentially  different 
from  us.  They  are  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our 
flesh.  The  difference  lies  in  this:  We  have  been  the 
darlings  of  fortune.    We  have  realized  the  noble  \dsion 


Democracy  vs.  Sovereignty  75 

of  democracy  which  Europe  ghmpsed  and  lost  a  century 
ago.  After  a  hundred  years  of  agony,  the  Fates  bring 
again  to  those  stricken  peoples  conditions  not  dis- 
similar to  those  of  1815. 

If  now  we  arm — as  we  should — and  do  only  that 
we  shall  show  ourselves  a  nation  of  ingrates.  If  we 
arm  and  say  to  Europe  that  we  are  ready  at  any  time 
to  disarm,  ready  with  them  to  create  an  international 
state,  a  state  in  which  the  central  authority  shall  act 
directly  on  the  people  as  our  Federal  Government  does 
— a  state  democratically  controlled  as  our  Union  is — a 
state  in  which  international  questions  shall  be  settled 
as  our  interstate  questions  are — a  state  in  which  war 
would  ultimately  become  as  impossible,  as  unthinkable 
as  it  now  is  between  Massachusetts  and  New  York — 
if  we  do  that,  aye,  if  we  try  to  do  that — we  shall  show 
ourselves  morally  at  least  to  be  worthy  descendants 
of  the  intrepid  men  who  signed  the  Declaration  of 
1776,  worthy  successors  of  the  great  democrats  who 
fashioned  the  charter  of  our  liberties  in  1787. 


THE  YEAR  1916  WILL  PROBABLY  BE 
NOTABLE  FOR  MANY  THINGS 


FROM  THE  AGENCY  BULLETIN   (N.  Y.  L.) 
JANUARY  1,  1916 


T  MAY  record  important  changes  in  the 
map  of  the  world;  it  may  indeed  mark  the 
end  of  certain  ideas  in  government  and  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era.  The  struggle  which 
has  held   the  greater  part   of  Europe  in  a 

life-destroying  grip  for  seventeen  months  cannot  go  on 

indefinitely  and   it   cannot   end  without   some  grave 

readjustments. 

Someone  somehow  miscalculated  or  this  could  not 

have  happened.      In  fact  a  good  many  wise  people 

miscalculated. 

You  know  what  my  belief  is:  That  the  Doctrine  of 
Unconditioned  Sovereignty  made  this  war  inevitable — 
inevitable  unless  the  world  arose  to  heights  of  wisdom  and 
sacrifice  that  were  never  reached  but  once  in  all  history, 
and  that  was  by  our  Fathers  when  they  welded  the  Thirteen 
Colonies  into  a  Nation. 

The  doctrine  of  Sovereignty  is  the  doctrine  of  selfish- 
ness and  of  weakness. 

A  nation  can  no  more  insure  itself,  standing  by  itself, 
than  a  man  can.    The   mortality  that  may  come  to 


The  Year  1916  77 

nations  at  the  close  of  this  war  was  as  certain  under 
the  doctrine  of  Sovereignty  as  that  out  of  a  given 
number  of  healthy  Uves  so  many  will  die  in  1916.  The 
individuals  who  will  die  in  1916  can  do  little  now  to 
prevent  it,  but  you  are  busy  teaching  them  how  they 
can  minimize  the  loss. 

The  nations  which  will  be  crippled,  possibly  elimi- 
nated, by  this  war  could  not  only  have  minimized  but 
could  have  prevented  such  happenings  by  adopting 
the  life  insurance  principle.  The  destructive  forces 
loosed  by  international  friction  are  all  controllable — 
they  are  the  product  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  and 
fear,  played  on  by  ambition  and  selfishness. 

The  discovery  of  the  law  of  mortality  made  life 
insurance  practicable,  gave  it  a  sound  basis.  It  was  a 
great  discovery,  comparable  in  its  influence  on  human 
happiness  with  any  of  the  great  discoveries  in  science. 
There  is  a  law  of  human  brotherhood,  closely  allied  to 
life  insurance,  feared  by  sovereignties  and  only  dimh- 
apprehended  by  the  people,  but  it  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  any  plan  which  will  effectuallj'  end  war. 

The  natural  impulse  of  the  politician  is  to  sneer  at 
such  suggestions  as  being  impractical  because  too 
idealistic.  The  world  cannot  arise  from  the  welter  of 
blood  into  which  it  has  fallen  unless  it  follows  Ideals. 
No  Ideal  can  be  a  more  hideous  failure,  can  cost  more 
blood  and  suffering  than  those  the  world  has  been 
following.     That  much  is  clear. 

The  law  of  human  brotherhood  will  cleanse  the 
bloody  hands  of  men,  will  banish  the  Terror  that  has 
pursued  every  Mother  of  sons  since  organized  society 
took  form.    Will  the  year  1916  see  the  beginning  of  its 


78  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

practical  application  to  international  affairs  ?  Its 
adoption  would  possibly  change  the  calendar;  it  would 
be  an  event  so  prodigious  that  all  future  time  might  be 
reckoned  from  its  beginning. 

You  and  all  life  insurance  men  have  been  its  Heralds 
for  lo  !  these  many  years. 

The  Republic  of  Nylic  is  the  microcosm  of  the  world- 
state  which  must  come  if  we  are  not  to  revert  to  a 
condition  worse  than  the  Dark  Ages. 

May  the  year  1916  see  the  beginnings  of  that  State, 
see  the  application  to  governmental  affairs  of  the 
principles  which  you  constantly  teach. 


THE  TRILOGY  OF  DEMOCRACY 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  FEBRUARY  14,  1916, 

BEFORE  THE  STUDENTS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN,  AND, 

ON  EARLIER  DATES,  BEFORE  AUDIENCES  IN  NEW  YORK, 

PHILADELPHIA  AND  CHICAGO 


ROMETHEUS  was  a  Titan,  in  the  religion 
and  mythology  of  an  ancient  and  very 
great  people;  he  was  also  the  friend  of 
man.  He  was  the  remote  ancestor  of 
')  Benjamin  FrankHn;  he  brought  fire  down 
from  Heaven.  He  saved  the  human  race  after  Zeus  had 
launched  a  destrojdng  thunderbolt  against  it.  He  stole 
fire  from  the  Gods  and  taught  men  its  uses,  and  thereby 
gave  humanity  the  means  by  which  it  could  develop 
and  elevate  itself.  He  was  the  first  great  democrat. 
Aeschylus,  the  first  great  tragic  poet,  tells  about 
Prometheus  and  his  struggles  on  behalf  of  humanity, 
in  such  fragments  as  survive  of  his  great  trilogy, — 
Prometheus  Bound,  Prometheus  Freed,  and  Prome- 
theus the  Fire-Bearer.  Aeschylus  dealt  with  elemental 
forces,  with  Gods  and  Titans  and  their  passions.  He 
was  a  tragic  poet  because  he  handled  the  stuff  of  which 
tragedy  is  made. 

Back  of  the  visible  and  hideous  scenes  of  this  Euro- 
pean war  lie  tragic  forces  which  threaten  not  merely 
this  or  that  nation,  but  humanity  itself:  a  destroying 
thunderbolt  has  again  been  launched  against  it.  The 
race  more  or  less  subconsciously  understands  its  peril, 

79 


80  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

and  there  are  reactions  now  taking  place  in  the  soul  of 
the  world  as  unmistakable  as  those  which  shocked  and 
changed  its  spiritual  life  in  the  centuries  preceding  and 
following  the  birth  of  Jesus. 

These  reactions  are  a  part  of  the  development  of 
Democracy;  their  story  is  a  part  of  its  Trilogy — of 
which  two  sections  have  now  been  completed.  The 
third  part,  which  should  record  Democracy's  triumph, 
is  now  in  the  ferment  of  events. 

The  struggles  of  Prometheus  with  Zeus  are  singu- 
larly suggestive  of  the  struggles  in  recent  centuries 
between  Democracy  and  established  Authority.  Zeus, 
through  Strength  and  Force,  and  in  punishment  for 
what  he  had  done,  chained  Prometheus  to  a  rock  in 
Farthest  Scythia,  and  finally',  to  complete  his  punish- 
ment, cast  him  into  the  Abyss.  But  not  even  Zeus 
could  destroy  Prometheus;  and  through  the  sur\iving 
fragments  of  Prometheus  Unbound  we  are  able  to  see 
that  this  friend  of  humanity  was  ultimately  released, 
and  we  can  imagine  that  the  text  of  Prometheus  the 
Fire-Bearer — of  which  there  is  no  sur\'i\'ing  fragment 
— probably  recorded  the  ultimate  triumph  of  man  and 
his  reconcihation  with  Omnipotence.  Prometheus  the 
Fire-Bearer  suggests  the  ultimate  realization  of  the 
dreams  of  Democracy;  Prometheus  Bound  foretells  our 
pre-revolutionary  period  and  all  other  periods  of  the 
same  character;  Prometheus  Freed  is  prophetic  of  the 
unprecedented  triumph  of  reason  over  prejudice  that 
achieved  the  American  Constitution,  a  triumph  which 
now  thrusts  sharply  upon  us — its  beneficiaries — the 
agony  of  Europe,  where  Prometheus  is  still  fettered, 
where  the  vultures  still  tear  at  his  \dtals.  Prometheus 
Bound  or  Freed  or  bearing  aloft  the  flaming  torch  of 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  81 

Liberty  typifies  the  struggles  of  Democracy  through 
the  ages. 

Our  Prometheus,  Democracy,  was  driven  by  Strength 
and  Force  across  an  almost  immeasurable  waste  of 
waters,  farther  than  farthest  Scythia,  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  ago.  There  was  need  of  no  Hephaestus  to 
fetter  him.  He  was  chained  by  poverty,  by  disease, 
by  savages,  by  famine.  The  vultures  of  jealousy  came 
and  tore  at  his  vitals,  but  he  kept  alive  the  Divine 
Fire,  and  taught  men  its  uses.  This  was  the  first  part 
of  the  Trilogy  of  Democracy:  This  was  Democracy 
Bound. 

At  the  supreme  moment  our  Prometheus  rose  su- 
perior to  tradition  and  fear  and  ignorance  and  preju- 
dice. The  scales  fell  from  his  eyes  and  he  saw!  Within 
his  then  distant  world,  where  he  was  free  from  the 
ambitions  of  dynasties  and  the  encroachments  of  mili- 
tarism, he  performed  the  supreme  act  which  points 
the  way  to  the  ultimate  rule  of  Democracj^  to  the 
attainment  of  lasting  peace;  he  destroyed,  within  his 
own  world,  the  doctrine  of  Unconditioned  Sovereignty. 
He  made  the  boundaries  between  the  Thirteen  States 
merely  convenient  barriers  behind  which  local  ambi- 
tions could  be  developed.  That  achievement  now 
controls  the  interstate  relations  of  forty-eight  com- 
monwealths, although  some  grave  questions  were  not 
finally  settled  until  1865. 

The  distinctive  achievements  of  our  Federal  Union 
are  these:  not  only  a  reassertion  of  the  fact  that  sov- 
ereignty rests  in  the  individual,  but  the  assertion  of 
the  right  of  such  separate  sovereigns  at  any  time  to 
quahfy  the  authority  of  the  States  through  which  their 
sovereignty  finds  expression,  to  create  a  larger  state 


82  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

whenever  they  see  fit,  and  by  appropriate  action  again 
to  qualify  or  change  that. 

In  1787  the  people  of  the  Western  World  expressed 
their  sovereignty  through  thirteen  separate  so-called 
sovereign  States. 

In  1789  these  same  sovereigns  qualified  the  separate 
authority  of  the  thirteen  States  and  subordinated  them 
all  to  a  new  and  controlling  State  made  up  of  all  the 
people  and  all  the  territory  and  all  the  possessions  of 
all  the  States.  They  called  the  new  State  the  United 
States  of  America. 

For  the  people  of  all  the  world,  or  if  not  that  then 
for  the  people  of  all  the  Democratic  States  of  the 
world,  or  if  not  that  then  for  the  people  of  all  the 
English-speaking  states  of  the  world — which  are  all 
Democratic — to  erect  a  controlling-state  by  the  same 
processes  would  in  principle  be  no  new  thing ;  and  that, 
by  such  intermediate  steps  as  are  practically  neces- 
sary, is  the  task  that  humanity  must  accomplish  if  it 
is  ever  to  control  the  elements  of  the  tragedy  that  lies 
in  existing  international  relations,  if  it  is  to  escape  the 
stroke  of  the  thunderbolt  that  has  been  launched 
against  it. 

This  achievement  of  Democracy  in  America,  its 
rejuvenation  in  Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies,  its 
seemingly  permanent  triumphs  in  France,  are  the 
second  part  of  the  Trilogy:  This  is  Democracy  Un- 
bound. 

And  now  the  spark  secretly  carried  from  Olympus 
has  become  a  flaming  torch. 

To-day  we  are  facing  the  third  part  of  the  Trilogy. 
Will  that  section  record  the  reahzation  of  Democracy's 
Dreams?     It  requires  some   faith   to   say  that.     Can 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  83 

Democracy  be  born  of  Tragedy?  Can  Brotherhood 
be  born  of  Hate?  Can  order  come  out  of  chaos?  Can 
Liberty  and  Equahty  and  Fraternity  be  the  children 
of  Death? 

Who  shall  lead  humanity  out  of  this  immeasurable 
disaster? 

Whence  is  to  come  the  inspiration  which  shall  pro- 
duce reason  and  the  light  that  shall  show  a  road? 

That  inspiration  and  that  light  can  apparently  come 
from  but  one  source.  Duty  as  well  as  Destiny  indi- 
cate that  our  role  in  the  work  of  redemption  and 
salvation,  our  role  in  the  section  of  the  Trilogy  which 
is  to  record  Democracy's  triumph,  if  that  triumph  is 
ever  to  be  achieved,  is  that  of  the  Light  Bearer. 

There  is  apparently  no  other  answer  to  the  ques- 
tions which  the  existing  European  tragedy  thrusts 
upon  us. 

Tragedy  may  follow  the  out-working  of  uncontrollable 
forces,  whose  problems  can  be  solved  only  by  infinite 
human  suffering,  disaster  and  death;  but  these  same 
forces  uncontrollable  in  one  age  may  be  controllable 
in  a  later  age.  A  war  that  is  a  tragedy  to-day, 
the  result  of  uncontrollable  forces,  may  be  a  crime 
to-morrow.  That  gallant  gentleman,  Sir  Edward 
Pakenham,  and  his  equally  gallant  companions,  who 
died  at  New  Orleans  two  weeks  after  the  peace  of  Ghent 
had  been  made,  would  not  have  died  if  Time  and 
Distance  had  then  been  conquered.  The  forces  that 
slew  them  were  uncontrollable  then;  to-day  they  are 
controllable.  Such  a  disaster  would  now  be  not  only 
a  tragedy  but  a  crime. 

Tragedies  may  also  be  the  result  of  controllable 
forces — of  human  weakness,  of  ambition,  of  fear,  of 


84  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

passion.     The  fruits  of  all  such  tragedies  are  crimes. 

There  isn't  a  factor  in  the  forces  back  of  the  Euro- 
pean war  that  was  uncontrollable,  although  one  of  the 
elements,  and  that  the  greatest,  is  ordinarily  rated  as 
uncontrollable  and  would  properly  be  so  rated  but  for 
the  triumph  of  human  reason  represented  by  the 
American  Union.  This,  therefore,  is  not  only  the  most 
colossal  war  but  the  most  colossal  crime  in  all  History — 
a  crime  so  universal  in  its  extent  and  so  hideous  in  its 
immediate  results  that  it  ought  to  destroy  existing 
standards  of  international  relations  and  ought  to  visit 
an  equal  condemnation  on  certain  individuals. 

What  ambitions,  what  fears,  what  ignorance,  what 
passions  so  possessed  the  peoples  of  Europe  on  the 
first  of  August,  1914,  that  they  were  swept  into  fratri- 
cidal slaughter,  looking  each  other  in  the  face,  touching 
each  others  hands,  hearing  each  others  voices,  and 
knowing  in  their  hearts  that  they  had  no  desire  to 
wrong  each  other? 

Why  had  no  great  nation — including  our  own — ever 
been  able  to  think  in  terms  other  than  those  of  its  own 
purposes  and  ambitions?  Why  had  nearly  all  national 
thinking  and  all  national  action  followed  selfish  Unes 
only?  Why  had  Great  Britain's  thinking — rich,  vast, 
democratic  and  satisfied  with  what  she  had,  as  she 
was — why  had  her  thinking  been  limited  to  the  prob- 
lem of  how  she  could  keep  what  she  had?  Why  did  no 
wider  vision  come  to  her?  Why  did  she  not  see  the 
peril  and  the  traged}^  that  lay  in  such  a  selfish  atti- 
tude? Why  had  Germany  thought  only  selfishly  while 
developing  the  most  marvelously  efficient  machine  that 
the  world  had  ever  seen?  Belie\ing  in  her  own 
efficiency,  in  her  own  greatness,  why  had  Germany's 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  85 

thinking  suggested  no  way  by  which  that  greatness 
could  be  perpetuated  except  through  the  conquest  of 
other  peoples,  through  the  ruin  of  other  civilizations? 
Why  had  it  never  occurred  to  England  that  she  could 
not,  in  a  world  so  small,  keep  what  she  had,  together 
with  her  boasted  control  of  the  seas,  without  consult- 
ing in  some  serious  way  the  wishes  and  ambitions  of 
other  nations?  Why  had  no  process  ever  appealed  to 
Germany  except  that  of  blood  and  iron?  There  was  a 
reason  for  this  narrow  thinking  and  it  was  this: 

The  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  just  as  natural  in 
nations  as  in  indi\'i duals  and  animals  and  just  as  strong. 

The  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  made  every  nation  an 
increasing  and  a  deadly  menace  to  every  other  nation, 
a  menace  which  finally  aroused  everywhere  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation.  Arouse  that  instinct  in  a 
normally  harmless  animal  and  it  becomes  dangerous; 
arouse  it  in  a  man  and  he  becomes  a  savage;  arouse  it 
in  a  nation  and  ci\dlization  slips  off  like  a  cloak,  the 
nation  reverts  to  primitive  rules  in  an  instant  and  will 
fight  to  exhaustion.  Alarmed  by  the  demands  of 
Sovereignty  this  instinct  created  what  we  may  well 
call  the  international  doctrine  of  the  hip  pocket  and 
the  six-shooter.  It  made  Christian  peoples  collectively 
braggarts  and  ruffians.  It  created  the  world  of  diplo- 
macy with  its  intrigue  and  lying,  its  conspiracies  and 
treasons,  its  violated  pledges  and  shameless  doctrines 
of  necessity. 

It  inevitably  created  a  race  for  international  advan- 
tage— advantage  in  population,  in  territory,  in  com- 
merce, and  ultimately  in  armies,  and  in  armaments. 
Its  sinister  meaning  should  have  been  clear  to  all. 
It  was  clear  only  to  a  few.     It  had  a  paralyzing  grip 


86  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

on  those  in  authority,  while  the  people  with  splendid 
fidelity  answered  blindly  to  the  demands  of  a  patri- 
otism which  could  not  see  beyond  its  own  frontiers. 

When  the  world  had  so  shrunk  that  every  man 
could  speak  to  every  other  man,  when  the  light  that 
comes  with  knowledge  had  flooded  humanity,  a  strange 
thing  happened, — a  thing  as  elemental  as  any  of  the 
happenings  amongst  the  Gods  and  the  Titans.  In  the 
most  important  relations  of  life  men  suddenly  lost 
their  vision,  they  lost  their  reason,  they  even  lost  their 
speech;  and,  at  the  same  time,  they  reverted  in  their 
physical  relations  to  the  level  of  the  Stone  Age.  Brought 
face  to  face  through  the  developments  of  science,  they 
were  able  to  see  and  understand  each  other  clearly  in 
all  relations  of  life  but  one.  As  citizens,  as  human 
beings,  they  saw  and  understood  all  citizens  of  other 
countries;  they  trusted  and  traded  with  each  other; 
they  were  reasonably  just  to  each  other  and  would 
have  been  wholly  so  but  for  the  overshadowing  power 
of  the  Force  that  could  at  any  time  make  them  blind 
and  deaf  and  irrational. 

That  force  was  Sovereignty  appealing  to  the  ele- 
mental instincts.  That  was  the  power  that  had  lim- 
ited the  thinking  of  the  nations.  It  built  a  wall  higher 
than  the  atmosphere,  as  opaque  as  prejudice  and  pas- 
sion and  fear  could  make  it  all  along  the  lines  that 
geographically  delimit  nations.  To  every  man  of  every 
nation  this  wall  was  at  once  as  pellucid  as  the  ether  and 
as  dark  as  Erebus.  Every  man  could  see  and  yet  was 
blind.  Through  this  closer  touch,  through  this  better 
understanding  amongst  the  units  of  humanity  and 
especially  through  the  achievement  of  the  American 
Union,  a  way  for  a  solution  of  the  tragedy  that  has  eter- 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  87 

nally  scourged  the  human  race  was  clearly  indicated; 
but  so  obsessed  were  men  by  the  doctrine  of  Spver- 
eignty  that,  on  August  1,  1914,  they  proceeded  on  a 
scale  so  vast  as  to  dwarf  Aeschylus'  conception  of 
power,  to  renew  and  even  to  surpass  the  old  slaughter. 
France  and  Germany  had  no  physical  barrier  between 
them ;  neither  had  the  other  nations.  They  had  common 
ties  of  enormous  importance;  their  citizens  moved 
freely  about  on  either  side  of  the  so-called  frontiers; 
they  found  each  other  individually  just  and  kindly. 
Time  and  Distance,  the  ancient  and  deadly  enemies 
of  man,  had  been  annihilated.  The  elements  of  the 
old  tragedy  were  controllable.  But  the  doctrine  of 
Unconditioned  Sovereignty  which  had  limited  their 
thinking  made  them  bhnd  and  deaf,  made  them  irra- 
tional and  worse  than  irrational,  made  them  savages, — 
all  in  the  twinkUng  of  an  eye.  Henry  Jekyll  did  not 
become  Mr.  Hyde  as  quickly  and  as  completely  as  the 
peaceful,  gentle,  humane,  inteUigent,  and  just  citizens 
of  Europe,  became  savages  on  August  1,  1914.  And 
the  further  paradox  of  it  lies  in  this :  WTien  the  Euro- 
pean citizen  turned  savage  at  the  behest  of  Sover- 
eignty, he  at  the  same  time  rose  to  great  spiritual 
heights  and  actually  experienced  unprecedented  moral 
exaltation.  He  became  superbly,  serenely  brave.  He 
died  smiling,  with  the  approving  cheers  of  his  fellows 
following  him  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, — yes, 
even  though  by  proper  standards  his  hands  reeked  with 
innocent  blood.  Measured  by  these  tests  there  are  no 
cowards  anywhere  in  the  world.  All  men  are  glori- 
ously brave.  Never  in  all  history  have  the  individual 
courage,  the  devotion,  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  the 
common  man  shone  out  so  splendidly.     And  this  com- 


88  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

pletes  the  tragedy, — that  such  noble  qualities  should 
be  so  ignobly  used. 

In  Europe  Prometheus  is  still  fettered.  The  rule  of 
Sovereignty  possesses  it  utterly.  Beyond  our  geo- 
graphic limits  it  possesses  us  too.  We  are  as  undemo- 
cratic in  international  relations  as  any  nation  that 
ever  existed.  And  the  tragedy  of  it  is  that  we  must 
be  so  until  the  lines  that  delimit  nations  have  no  more 
significance  than  the  lines  that  separate  the  States  of 
our  Union. 

The  situation  in  Europe  threatens  us;  Sovereignty 
threatens  us :  because  while  we  have  a  law  under  which 
forty-eight  States  can  live  together,  Europe  has  no 
law  under  which  her  States  can  live  together  and  we 
have  no  law  under  which  our  Union  and  the  States 
of  Europe  can  live  together.  We  ought  to  have,  but 
Unconditioned  Sovereignty  denies  it;  Unconditioned 
Sovereignty,  whose  sinister  power  can  make  even  us 
blind  and  mad.  Unconditioned  Sovereignty  threatens 
us.  Because  of  that  threat,  we  are  demanding  that 
Washington  prepare — there  seems  to  be  no  other  sane 
thing  to  do.  Prepare  to  do  what?  Primarily  of  course 
to  defend  ourselves,  but  secondarily  to  re-create  a 
condition  under  which  our  national  boundaries  shall 
become  a  wall  through  which  we  cannot  see,  behind 
which, — not  beyond  which,  let  us  hope, — we  may  be- 
come as  mad  as  any.  How  we  hate  it!  As  we  make 
this  demand,  we  feel  that  we  have  compromised  our- 
selves, that  we  have  parted  with  some  measure  of  our 
most  precious  possession, — our  self-respect.  Prepara- 
tion with  us  as  with  every  true  Democracy  is  indeed  a 
necessity  only  a  little  less  hideous  than  war  itself. 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  89 

If  to  prepare — which  at  best  is  a  patriotic  reversion 
to  barbarism — is  all  we  are  to  do,  we  might  well  con- 
clude that  Plymouth  Rock  and  Jamestown  have  lost 
their  inspiration  and  meaning,  that  Lexington  and 
Ticonderoga  and  Yorktown  and  Appomattox  mark  no 
advance.  But  preparation  is  not  all — it  must  not  be 
all.  The  necessity  which  demands  preparation  pre- 
sents also  a  supreme  duty.  Not  to  discharge  that 
duty,  not  to  try  at  least  to  discharge  it,  will  be  to 
shirk  our  natural  role  and  to  fail  humanity  in  a  great 
crisis.  As  we  demand  that  Washington  take  whatever 
steps  are  necessary  for  our  adequate  defense,  we  should 
demand  that  those  steps  be  so  taken  that  our  brothers 
in  Europe  and  in  all  the  world  shall  at  the  same  time 
understand  this:  that  as  yet  we  are  neither  blind  nor 
dumb  nor  mad;  that  we  hate  war  and  all  its  hideous 
fruits;  that  we  have  no  enmity  against  them;  that  we 
know  a  better  method  than  war ;  that  these  forty-eight 
Commonwealths,  having  a  territory  as  large  as  all  of 
Europe  outside  Asiatic  Russia  and  a  population  as 
great  as  that  territory  had  a  hundred  years  ago,  have 
been  freed  and  we  believe  that  through  the  wise  exer- 
cise of  the  authority  that  freed  them  Europe  may  be 
freed,  and  ultimately  all  the  world  may  be  freed.  Our 
duty  and  opportunity  lie  in  this: 

WE  MUST  BREAK  DOWN  THE  WALLS  OF 
UNCONDITIONED  SOVEREIGNTY.  BY  NO 
OTHER  PROCESS  CAN  DEMOCRACY  SUR- 
VIVE. 

By  no  other  process  can  the  heroic,  god-hke  quali- 
ties of  the  common  man  be  applied  to  his  elevation, 
and  not  eternally  to  his  destruction;  by  no  other 
process  can  these  qualities  be  redeemed  from  their 


90  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

present  savage  and  internecine  misuse;  by  no  other 
process  can  the  elements  of  this  tragedy  be  controlled. 

If  we  assume  the  role  of  Prometheus  the  Fire-Bearer 
in  the  third  section  of  Democracy's  Trilogy,  the  leader- 
ship in  that  colossal  task  is  ours. 

Since  Prometheus  brought  fire  from  Heaven,  no 
greater  opportunity  has  faced  men. 

No  form  of  government  can  long  survive  that  does 
not  give  security  to  life  and  property.  That  is  axio- 
matic. In  the  present  constitution  of  this  little  world, 
ruled  by  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  with  its  elemental 
appeal,  the  nation  that  would  survive  must  be  ready 
to  fight.  That  is  an  admission  which  the  citizens  of  a 
democracy  make  reluctantly,  hesitantly,  and  shame- 
facedly. But  we  must  face  the  facts.  The  citizens 
of  a  democracy  naturally  feel  that  they  have  moved  in 
their  ideals,  their  methods,  and  their  purposes,  beyond 
the  savagery  of  such  methods.  But  have  they?  Is 
there  under  the  rule  of  Sovereignty  so  much  less  likeli- 
hood of  trouble  between  democracies  than  there  is  of 
trouble  between  democracies  and  other  forms  of  gov- 
ernment? To  be  specific :  Is  there  so  much  less  possi- 
bility after  all  of  trouble  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  than  there  is  of  trouble  between  the 
United  States  and  Germany?  The  same  barbarism 
rules  international  relations  in  each  case.  If  the  think- 
ing of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  is  more 
sympathetic  and  similar,  it  is  because  of  a  common 
origin  and  not  because  either  nation  is  disposed  at  all 
to  take  down  the  cruel  and  dangerous  barrier  which 
divides  them.  They  may  think  alike  on  either  side 
of  the  barrier,  but  the  barrier  remains.  The  Doctrine 
of  Sovereignty  and  the  principles    of   Democracy  are 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  91 

irreconcilable.  Both  cannot  permanently  survive  in 
the  same  world. 

In  international  relations  democracies  are  at  a  dis- 
advantage even  in  times  of  peace:  they  despise  lying. 
In  times  of  war  they  are  certain  to  play  a  pathetic 
part:  when  sovereignty  orders  the  citizens  of  a  democ- 
racy to  march  out  and  kill  men  who  have  never  con- 
sciously done  them  wrong,  men  who  are  by  nature 
endowed  with  the  same  inalienable  rights  which  the 
citizens  claim  for  themselves,  they  obey,  but  they  are 
ashamed,  and  for  a  time  at  least  they  do  their  work 
badly. 

Democracies  will  not  be  true  democracies  until  they 
apply  their  own  principles  of  government  to  inter- 
national relations,  until  by  the  creation  of  an  effective 
union  of  democratic  nations  they  banish  the  savagery 
of  sovereignty  and  the  monstrous  inefficiencies  of  so- 
called  international  law. 

Until  such  a  Union  is  achieved  we  must  be  prepared 
to  defend  ourselves;  but  as  we  prepare,  what  other 
things  should  we  do?  After  all  our  glorious  history, 
after  our  Declaration  about  man's  inalienable  rights, 
after  our  solemn  assertions  that  all  men — not  Ameri- 
cans only,  but  all  men — are  created  equal,  have  we  no 
peculiar  responsibility  at  this  time?  Must  we  just 
get  ready  and  march  out  and  sink  into  the  ruck  and 
horror  of  human  slaughter?  Is  that  the  whole  of  the 
problem?  I  submit,  in  the  light  of  our  professions 
and  our  history,  that  humanity  has  the  right  to  expect 
something  more  than  that  from  us.  Humanity  has 
reached  the  hour  when  it  is  asking  for  a  new  Order 
and  is  listening  for  the  voice  of  the  Prophet  who  is  to 
herald  its  coming.     If  the  close  of  this  war  is  not  to  be 


92  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  hour  of  deliverance,  who  shall  say  that  deliverance 
will  ever  come?  If  we  are  not  the  people  to  speak, 
then  from  whence  in  all  the  world  shall  the  voice  of 
deliverance  be  heard?  Shall  we  by  preparation  for 
defense  and  by  silence  express  our  belief  that  deliver- 
ance through  a  new  Order  is  impossible?  Do  we  be- 
lieve that  this  European  slaughter  is  a  part  of  the 
Order  of  Nature,  and  not  to  be  avoided?  Is  the  im- 
pulse which  makes  men  love  their  country  born  of 
Evil?    Must  it  forever  bring  in  a  harvest  of  tears? 

Let  us  be  candid:  When  the  Roman  Augurs, 
around  the  beginning  of  this  Era,  in  obedience  to  the 
ritual  of  their  religion  examined  the  entrails  of  animals 
in  order  to  learn  what  the  future  was  to  be  and  then 
told  the  people,  they  at  last  reached  the  point  where 
the  absurdity  of  the  process  penetrated  even  their 
consciousness  and  they  laughed  in  each  other's  faces. 
They  finally  knew  themselves  for  the  tricksters  and 
liars  that  they  were.  But  the  people  for  centuries 
willingly  sacrificed  their  lives  under  the  direction  of 
these  Augurs  with  the  same  fine  fidelity  that  rules  the 
peoples  of  Europe  to-day.  The  loud  assertion  by 
great  commanders  on  both  sides  of  this  war  that  they 
have  direct  knowledge  of  the  Divine  purpose  and  assur- 
ance of  Divine  approval  has  in  it  a  note  which  suggests 
the  ribald  laughter  of  their  Roman  predecessors.  These 
modern  Augurs  are  the  High  Priests  of  Sovereignty. 
They  (and  we  in  so  far  as  we  concur)  are  betraying 
the  people  in  order  to  support  the  established  order. 
The  established  order  must  be  supported;  but  this  is 
not  the  way  to  support  it,  this  is  the  way  to  destroy  it. 

When  in  1788  our  fathers  created  a  larger  State, 
they  did  not  destroy  the  established  order;  they  de- 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  93 

stroyed  disorder:  they  did  not  destroy  the  integrity 
of  any  of  the  thirteen  states;  on  the  contrary  they 
gave  to  each  a  vastly  enlarged  outlook  and  a  broader 
spiritual  assurance.  They  gave  patriotism  a  new 
meaning. 

The  United  States  of  America  was  then  not  a  fact 
but  a  thought,  not  a  geographic  entity,  but  a  vision: 
it  lay  like  a  new  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth  all  about 
the  thirteen  states  but  was  perceived  only  by  men  of 
vision.  Washington  saw  it,  and  Madison  and  Jay  and 
Franklin  and,  most  vividly  of  all,  Hamilton  saw  it. 

Into  the  larger  world  which  enveloped  them,  which 
they  dimly  saw  and  seeing  dimly  greatly  feared,  the 
people  were  induced  finally  to  go — partly  through  fear, 
partly  by  persuasion,  chiefly  by  the  power  of  masterful 
leadership. 

The  United  English  Nations  is  to-day  only  a  thought, 
a  \'ision;  but  as  against  the  menace  of  Sovereignty  its 
suggestion  enfolds  the  English-speaking  states  hke  a 
benediction. 

We  in  the  United  States  have  seen  a  vision  crystallize 
into  a  great  political  fabric:  we  have  seen  a  dream 
become  the  most  practical  and  prophetic  fact  in  human 
government. 

We  now  see  another  and  a  nobler  vision:  it  pictures 
the  solidarity  of  the  English  Nations,  it  tells  us  that 
they  are  to-day  divided  only  by  a  political  fiction ;  that 
in  their  united  action  lies  the  only  hope  that  Democ- 
racy's Dreams  will  be  realized.  They  are  one  in 
language,  one  in  sympathy,  one  in  traditions,  one  in 
principles,  one  in  standards  of  justice,  one  in  ideals. 
The  foundations  of  a  Democratic  Government  so  vast 
that  it  could  compel  peace  are  already  securely  laid  if 


94  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  English  world  shall  now  arise  and  make  the  vision 
a  reality. 

Is  there  to-day  somewhere  a  Prophet  who  shall  yet 
stand  in  a  Congress  of  English-speaking  nations — a 
Congress  similar  to  that  which  met  in  Independence 
Hall  in  the  summer  of  1787 — and  say  as  Washington 
did  on  the  opening  day:  "Let  us  raise  a  standard  to 
which  the  wise  and  the  honest  can  repair;  the  event 
is  in  the  hand  of  God"?  Are  there  ^Madisons  and 
Jays  and  Hamiltons  to  plead  for  the  acceptance  of  the 
Order  which  that  Congress  would  foreshadow? 

The  opportunity  is  greater  than  in  1787,  the  need  is 
more  dire,  the  task  is  easier,  the  issue  no  less  certain. 

The  larger  English  Nation  which  could  be  so  created 
would  do  for  its  units  what  the  United  States  has  done 
on  this  continent.  It  would  bring  the  "Federation  of 
the  World"  within  the  realm  of  probabiUties. 

Prepare  for  war?     Yes,  we  must. 

But  are  we  great  enough  at  the  same  time  to  plead 
for  peace?  Are  we  strong  enough  to  lead  in  the 
movement  which  must  ultimately  unite  the  English- 
speaking  states  of  the  world,  if  the  glorious  Anglo-Saxon 
tradition  is  to  survive,  if  democracy  and  not  the 
doctrine  of  sovereignty  is  to  prevail  ? 

If  we  essay  the  part  of  Prometheus  the  Fire-Bearer, 
let  us  not  too  much  doubt  the  potency  of  our  example. 
Our  brothers  in  Europe  may  be  bhnd  and  deaf  and 
mad,  as  we  once  were,  as  we  may  be  again.  But 
there  is  a  great  sadness  in  their  hearts  and  a  great  hope. 
They  are  waiting,  as  the  world  was  waiting  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago.  They  expect  deUverance.  They 
cannot  deUver  themselves.  Sovereignty  holds  them 
bound  and  helpless.     The  vultures  of  war  still  tear  at 


The  Trilogy  of  Democracy  95 

their  \itals.  They  are  as  heroic  as  Titans  and  as  weak 
as  children.  Giants  in  their  own  strength,  they  are 
bound  by  LiUiputians.  They  are  not  enemies,  but 
the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  has  made  them  beheve 
they  are.  They  do  not  hate  each  other,  no,  not  even 
when  in  obedience  to  orders  they  slay  each  other. 
They  are  confused  and  bewildered.  They  are  kilhng 
each  other  hy  millions,  and  they  know  not  why. 

Therefore  as  we  prepare  to  defend  ourselves  let  us 
also  speak  to  them.  And  as  we  speak  let  us  pray: 
That  even  as  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face 
of  the  waters,  when  the  earth  was  without  form  and 
void  and  said :  Let  there  be  light  and  there  was  Light 
— so  may  our  united  voices,  charged  with  Sympathy 
and  the  spirit  of  Human  Brotherhood  creatively  pene- 
trate the  horror  that  hangs  over  Europe,  and  carry 
to  those  who  are  now  in  darkness  the  great  Light 
that  first  came  to  us  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
years  ago. 


THE  UNITED  ENGLISH  NATIONS 


AN  ADDRESS  IN  COMMEMORATION  BOTH  OF 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-FIFTH   ANNIVERSARY 

OF  THE  FOUNDING  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY.  AND  OF  THE  ADMISSION 

OF  THE   STATE   OF  VERMONT  TO  THE  AMERICAN  UNION;    DELIVERED  AT 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWELFTH  COMMENCEMENT  OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VERMONT,  JUNE  28,  1916. 

BURLINGTON.  VERMONT 


>  N  THE  1st  of  March,  1791,  George  Wash- 
ington, then  serving  his  first  term  as  first 
President  of  this  Repubhc,  by  proclama- 
tion directed  the  Senate  of  the  United 
O  States  to  meet  in  special  session  at  Phila- 
delphia on  March  4th,  and  on  that  date  he  presented 
for  confirmation  his  appointments  to  Federal  Office  in 
the  new  State  of  Vermont. 

Vermont  had  then  been  an  independent  Republic 
for  fourteen  years.  Her  intrepid  sons  had  won  the 
first  important  victory  in  the  struggle  for  independence. 
Three  weeks  after  the  fight  on  Lexington  Common 
and  at  Concord,  Ethan  Allen  had  thundered  at  the 
gates  of  Ticonderoga  in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah. 
Paul  Revere  had  scarcely  completed  his  immortal 
midnight  ride  before  Lake  Champlain  had  been  cleared 
of  the  British  by  Allen  and  his  associates. 

These  were  great  da3^s,  great  as  a  record  of  passing 

events,  but  greater  as  introducing  a  new  and  a  nobler  era. 

The   founding   of   this   L^niversity   dates   from   the 

same  j^ear;  but,  as  an  expression  of  purpose,  it  goes 

back  to  1777,  to  the  remarkable  Fundamental  Law 


The  United  English  Nations  97 

which  the  Pioneers  of  the  New  Hampshire  Grants  then 
wrote  for  the  Repubhc  of  Vermont — a  law  that  as 
clearly  called  for  One  University  in  the  State  as  it 
clearly  inveighed  against  the  crime  of  human  slavery. 

Through  the  intervening  years — 1777  to  1791 — when 
the  easterly  and  westerly  boundaries  of  Vermont  were 
undetermined,  when  a  persistent  effort  was  made  to 
dismember  the  Republic,  when  its  fine  service  to  the 
Colonies  during  the  Revolution  were  flouted  and 
ignored,  when  Dartmouth  College  was  one  daj^  within 
Vermont  and  the  next  day  within  New  Hampshire,  the 
educational  ideals  and  standards  of  the  people  were 
never  lowered.  Dartmouth  so  powerfully  disturbed  the 
politics  of  the  Republic  that  the  results  of  the  contest — 
which  proposed  to  make  that  now  venerable  institution 
the  educational  head  of  the  State, — remain  to  this  day. 
Dartmouth's  appeal  was  temporarily  effective,  because 
it  satisfied  the  fixed  determination  of  our  forebears  to 
have  an  educational  institution  of  the  first  rank  within 
their  borders.  With  the  admission  of  Vermont  to  the 
Union,  her  easterly  boundary  was  fixed  at  the  Con- 
necticut River  and  thereby  the  further  plans  of  Eleazer 
and  John  Wheelock  and  their  associates  were  finally 
defeated. 

The  Act  of  1791  clearly  states  its  purpose  in  the 
Title.  It  was  an  "act  for  the  purpose  of  founding  a 
University  at  Burhngton".  Mark  the  word  "founding." 
The  Act  was  passed  during  the  existence  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  1786.  That  Constitution  by  comparison 
with  the  Constitution  of  1777  had  been  educationally 
emasculated,  and  there  is  abundant  evidence  showing 
that  this  had  been  accomplished  by  the  influence  of 
Dartmouth  College. 


98  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  language  of  the  Title  and  of  the  Act  itself 
makes  it  clear  that  the  people  after  the  miscarriage  of 
Dartmouth's  plans  were  as  determined  as  they  had  been 
in  1777  to  have  a  University  of  their  own;  they,  there- 
fore, not  only  passed  the  Act  founding  a  University 
at  Burlington,  but  they  provided  a  foundation  for  it 
by  dedicating  to  the  use  of  the  institution  so  founded 
"all  such  grants  as  have  been  already  made  by  authority 
of  this  State  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  a  college." 

Their  belief  that  by  this  language  they  had  not 
only  founded  a  University  but  had  re\4ved  the  unequiv- 
ocal declaration  in  the  Constitution  of  1777  in  favor 
of  one  University  in  the  State,  can  hardly  be  questioned. 

I  shall  not,  however,  to-day  further  discuss  any  of 
these  old  problems:  whether  Ira  Allen  was  or  was  not 
the  perficient  founder  of  the  University;  whether  it  is 
or  is  not  legally  a  ward  of  the  State.  Within  our 
University  world  these  problems  have  already  been 
exhaustively  and  ably  handled.* 

I  shall  dwell  rather  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  renaissance 
which  was  coeval  with  the  act  founding  this  Univer- 
sity and  with  the  admission  of  Vermont  to  the  Union, — 
a  re-birth  which  in  the  intervening  period  of  one 
hundred   and   twenty-five   years   has   politically   and 

*For  a  full  discussion  of  these  problems  see: 

CENTENNIAL  ADDRESS,  bv  Hon.  Robert  D.  Benedict,  June 
21,  1891; 

"THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY  AS  THE  HEAD  OF  THE  PUBLIC 
EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE  STATE,"  an  address  before 
the  N.  Y.  Alumni  Association  of  the  L^niversity,  Feb.  3,  1915,  by  Hon. 
Warren  R.  Austin; 

"THE  STATUS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VERMONT  AND 
STATE  AGRICULTURAL  COLLEGE  FROM  A  LEGAL  STAND- 
POINT" (1914)  by  Hon.  Geo.  M.  Powers. 

REPORT  OF  THE  COMMISSION  TO  INVESTIGATE  THE 
EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  AND  CONDITIONS  OF  VERMONT 
(1914). 


The  United  English  Nations  99 

educationally  glorified  the  Western  world  and  carried 
the  Anglo-Saxon  love  of  liberty  and  law  across  the 
Pacific  and  around  the  globe. 

I  shall  assume  that  you,  as  their  lineal  political 
descendants,  have  in  some  measure  the  vision  of 
Hamilton  and  Washington,  and  that  even  as  they 
saw  beyond  the  quarreling  Colonies  to  the  present 
power  and  peace  of  the  great  Republic,  so  you  can 
see  beyond  the  bloody  fields  of  Europe  in  1916  to  a 
still  greater  Republic  where  the  "war-drums  throb  no 
longer  and  the  battle-flags  are  furled". 

The  charter  of  the  University  dates  from  the  year 
when  the  fourteenth  star  was  added  to  the  azure  field 
of  the  national  flag,  from  the  year  when  the  States 
under  the  Federal  Constitution  performed  substan- 
tially their  first  sovereign  act  by  enlarging  their  geo- 
graphic boundaries,  from  the  year  when  the  Union 
entered  upon  that  unprecedented  period  of  demo- 
cratic expansion  which  has  made  it  for  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  years  the  desire  of  all  the  world,  the  refuge 
of  the  restless  and  the  wronged.  Vermont,  entering 
the  Union,  pointed  the  way  of  honor  and  of  glory. 
Thirty-four  other  stars  have  since  been  added  to  the 
field  of  blue.  This  Union  is  now  not  merely  incredibly 
rich  whereas  it  was  then  poor,  immeasurably  strong 
whereas  it  was  then  weak,  geographically  vast  whereas 
it  was  then  a  mere  fringe  along  the  Atlantic  littoral; 
it  is  that  and  something  more:  it  is  the  cosmos  of 
democracy,  the  great  example,  the  glorious  product 
of  a  process  that  has  put  human  rights  above  so-called 
sovereign  rights. 

In  Greek  mythology  the  Sphinx  was  a  female  monster 
which  sat  on  a  rock  by  the  roadside  and  propounded 


100  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

to  each  passer-by  a  riddle.  She  killed  all  who  failed 
to  guess  the  riddle.  Finally  Oedipus  answered  cor- 
rectly, whereupon,  in  accordance  with  her  own  con- 
ditions, she  killed  herself.  The  doctrine  of  Uncon- 
ditioned Sovereignty  is  the  modern  Sphinx  which  has 
propounded  her  riddle  to  the  nations  of  Europe.  Her 
riddle  unsolved,  the  Sphinx  is  enforcing  the  destruction 
of  the  infinitely  precious  structure  of  their  several 
civilizations  painfully  erected  by  the  people  through 
centuries  of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice.  I  shall  try 
to  point  out  a  modern  Oedipus  whose  clear  duty  it  is 
to  face  this  Sphinx  and  answer  her  riddle. 

Europe — indeed  nearly  all  the  civilized  world  except 
America — stands  to-day  besprent  with  human  blood, 
soul-sick  and  weary,  exhausted  physically,  well-nigh 
ruined  financially,  and  saj^s:  "Show  us  a  better  way. 
We  can  go  no  further  on  this  road.    Show  us  the  way!" 

Ebenezer  Elhott,  "the  Corn  Law  Rhymester", 
expressed  this  agony  when  he  said: 

"When  wilt  Thou  save  the  people? 

O  God  of  mercy,  when? 
Not  kings  and  lords,  not  (but)  nations ! 

Not  thrones  and  crowns,  but  men! 
Flowers  of  Thy  heart,  O  God  are  they; 

Let  them  not  pass,  like  weeds,  away, 
Their  heritage  a  sunless  daJ^ 

God  save  the  people! 

When  wilt  Thou  save  the  people? 

O  God  of  mercy,  when? 
The  people.  Lord,  the  people, 

Not  thrones  and  crowns,  but  men! 
******* 

God  save  the  people!" 

From  the  year  that  marks  the  date  of  our  charter 
and  the  entry  of  Vermont  into  the  Union,  this  nation 


The  United  English  Nations  101 

has  played  a  unique  part  in  the  drama  of  human 
Hfe  and  in  the  evolution  of  free  government.  We  see 
it  standing  in  1791  at  the  shore  of  the  Western  world 
with  open  arms  welcoming  all  who  came.  Many  of 
us  saw  it  in  the  agony  of  civil  strife.  We  saw  it  emerge 
from  that  struggle  triumphant,  to  find  itself  spanning 
a  continent  and  facing  two  oceans  instead  of  one.  It 
has  blundered,  as  all  democracies  apparently  must ;  but 
regarded  merely  as  a  unit  of  power  amongst  the  units 
that  make  up  the  ci\dlization  of  the  world,  it  has  a 
record  that  is  a  little  cleaner,  a  little  sweeter,  a  little 
less  blood-stained  than  that  of  any  other  great  sov- 
ereignty that  exists  now  or  that  has  ever  existed.  But 
that  is  not  its  greatest  nor  its  finest  achievement. 
That  is  not  the  prophetic  fact  upon  which  I  would 
dwell  to-day.    The  problem  before  the  world  is: 

"The  people,  Lord,  the  people, 

Not  thrones  and  crowns,  but  men! 
God  save  the  people!" 

Thrones  and  crowns  and  nationalities  and  the  savage 
doctrine  on  which  they  stand  have  wrought  their 
bloody  work.  Is  the  day  of  the  people  about  to  dawn? 
That  this  European  horror  lies  in  the  very  order  of 
nature  and  is  therefore  necessary,  this  nation  not  only 
does  not  believe,  but  disproves  in  every  line  of  its 
history.  That  blood  must  be  let  forever  we  do  not 
believe.  That  man  congenitally  is  so  much  a  savage 
that  he  is  incapable  of  universal  self-government  we 
strongly  dispute.  That  learning  and  so-called  culture 
and  the  seeming  triumphs  of  science  are  only  a  thin 
veneer  hiding  an  irreconcilable  brutality  we  deny. 
On  what  may  we  soundly  base  these  denials?  The 
situation  in  Europe  to-day  and  indeed  no  inconsider- 


102  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

able  part  of  human  history  indicate  that  our  denials 
are  based  on  insubstantial  dreams.  CiviUzation  has 
run  into  another  bloody  impasse.  Must  this  dreadful 
condition  forever  recur?  Is  there  no  great  example 
showing  the  way  out? 

We  celebrate  to-day  the  anniversarj^  not  of  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  principle  in  government  but  the  anni- 
versary of  a  new  application  of  a  principle.  The  period 
of  governments  based  on  sheer  external  force  began  to 
pass  when  Rome  passed.  That  was  why  Charlemagne 
and  Napoleon,  who  later  strove  for  universal  dominion, 
failed.  The  principle  that  began  to  assert  itself  after  the 
Roman  era  is  this :  That  sovereignty  hes  in  the  indi\'idual 
and  comes  by  no  other  Di\ane  right.  This  was  a  violent 
departure  from  long  established  doctrines.  After  the 
fall  of  Rome  and  after  the  development  and  decline  of 
Feudalism,  the  authority  of  the  individual,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  authority  by  Di\dne  right,  began  to 
find  expression  in  units  of  ci\'ic  power,  which  we  call 
democracies.  At  first  these  units  expressing  the  com- 
posite will  of  individual  sovereigns  were  geographically 
small, — the  machinery  of  transportation  and  com- 
munication at  that  time  were  such  that  the  radius  of 
democratic  power  was  necessarily  circumscribed.  There 
was,  moreover,  plenty  of  room.  The  world  was  still 
very  large;  the  oceans  were  broad;  time  and  distance 
kept  men  and  nations  far  apart.  They  did  not  jostle 
each  other  as  they  do  now.  But  that  period  passed, 
and  nowhere  is  the  effect  of  its  passing  more  clearly 
written  than  in  the  history  of  this  Repubhc. 

Washington  and  Hamilton  certainly  did  not  foresee 
the  part  that  the  railroad,  the  telegraph  and  the 
telephone   would   ultimately   play   in   the   success   of 


The  United  English  Nations  103 

their  experiment.  The  Federation  of  the  Thirteen 
States  under  the  Constitution  was  at  the  time  a  heroic 
defiance  not  only  of  the  accepted  rules  which  then 
regulated  and  still  regulate  international  relations,  but 
it  was  substantially  a  defiance  of  the  belief  that  democ- 
racies could  not  be  large  and  successful.  To-day  the 
machinery  of  democratic  governments  controls  ter- 
ritories greater  than  those  of  some  of  the  earlier  so- 
called  universal  empires. 

In  1783  there  was  neither  telegraph  nor  telephone 
nor  railroad,  yet  when  the  common  tie  that  bound 
them  to  the  mother-country  was  severed  and  sover- 
eignty was  asserted  by  each  of  the  Thirteen  States,  there 
was  not  room  enough  for  them  in  the  whole  Western 
world.  After  the  Peace  of  Paris,  the  same  hostility 
began  to  develop  between  these  sovereignties  which 
is  now  destroying  Europe. 

The  soil  of  each  of  the  Thirteen  States  became  some- 
thing sacred.  National  sovereignty  demanded  this  but 
there  was  in  the  nature  of  things  no  reason  for  it.  Any 
one  of  the  Colonies  might  have  been  geographically 
greater  or  smaller  than  it  was,  and  it  would  have  been 
just  as  well.  There  had  been  no  Divine  fiat  through 
which  so  many  square  miles  of  a  certain  more  or  less 
illogical  contour  were  ordained  to  become  the  sacred 
soil  of  Connecticut  or  of  Maryland  or  of  any  other 
Colony.  We  know  that  but  for  the  greed  and  grafting 
of  some  Governors  of  New  York  and  the  obstinacy 
of  others,  Vermont  would  to-day  be  a  part  of  the 
Empire  State.  Fortuitous  reasons  chiefly  made  Rhode 
Island  and  Delaware  geographically  small  while  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  were  geographically  large. 
Nevertheless    the    territorial    limits    of    each    State, 


104  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

whether  it  was  great  or  small,  whether  its  contour 
was  logical  or  illogical,  became  in  1783  substantially 
the  limit  of  the  world  for  the  people  who  resided 
in  that  State.  They  adopted  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
patriots  of  all  nations  and  were  unable  to  see  or  think 
beyond  their  own  frontiers.  Each  of  the  Thirteen 
States  assumed  that  every  other  State  was  trying  to 
rob  it.  The  assumption  was  quite  sound,  too.  Com- 
mercial anarchy  followed  and  war  was  narrowly  avoided 
a  dozen  times  between  the  Peace  of  Paris  and  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  The  Thirteen  States 
started  out  to  do  exactly  what  Europe  is  doing  now. 

No  nation  has  yet  squarely  faced  the  full  significance 
of  the  doctrine  that  sovereignty  lies  in  the  indi\'idual. 
If  democracies  dealing  with  democracies  must  finally 
use  the  methods  of  autocracies,  then,  internationally 
at  least,  democracy  hasn't  accomplished  much.  When 
the  peoples  of  two  nations  go  out  to  slay  each  other 
the  spectacle  and  the  morals  of  it  are  equally  grotesque 
whether  the  leaders  of  each  side  claim  to  have  been 
Divinely  anointed  or  whether  each  side,  self-governed, 
rallies  to  the  cry:  "For  God  and  Country."  The 
reference  to  the  Divinity  is  as  blasphemous  in  the  one 
case  as  in  the  other. 

The  event  which  we  celebrate  to-day  marks  the 
time  when  our  fathers,  ha\dng  already  placed  their 
interests  as  human  beings  above  the  fortuitous  ex- 
pression of  their  authority  called  States,  applied  this 
principle  in  a  still  broader  way.  By  admitting  Vermont 
to  the  Union  they  recognized  the  inalienable  rights  of 
people  not  within  their  territory. 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  VERMONT  BY  ENTERING 
THE  UNION   DID   NOT  SURRENDER   SOVER- 


The  United  English  Nations  105 

EIGNTY;  ON  THE  CONTRARY,  BY  GAINING 
A  VOICE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  FOUR- 
TEEN FEDERATED  STATES  THEY  VASTLY 
ADVANCED  THEIR  POWER  AS  INDIVIDUALS. 
THEY  SURRENDERED  ONLY  THEIR  SOV- 
EREIGN RIGHTS  TO  BECOME  SAVAGES  IN 
THEIR  FUTURE  RELATIONS  WITH  THEIR 
NEIGHBORS. 

If  individual  sovereignty  means  anything  it  means 
something  wider  than  the  geographic  hmits  of  any 
existing  State. 

The  federation  of  thirteen  hostile  states  was  a  logical 
apphcation  of  the  principle  of  individual  sovereignty; 
but  while  it  solved  grave  problems,  it  created  others.  If 
the  Union  was  necessarily  to  be  limited  geographically 
to  its  thirteen  constituent  units  and  was  without  power 
of  expansion,  if  it  must  assume  toward  the  remainder  of 
the  world — particularly  the  Western  world — the  rigid 
aloofness  apparently  indispensable  to  the  maintenance 
of  national  sovereignty,  then  its  creation  marked  no 
supreme  advance;  but,  if  the  Union  had  the  power  of 
expansion,  if  it  could  when  it  saw  fit  extend  its  geo- 
graphic limits  and  its  institutions  and  laws  to  include 
other  States — States  created  out  of  territory  owned  by 
the  federated  States  at  the  time  of  their  federation,  or 
States  created  out  of  territory  to  be  acquired  later,  or, 
and  this  would  be  the  supreme  test.  States  that  before 
had  been  free  and  sovereign, — then  an  advance  of 
supreme  significance  had  been  made.  The  act  which 
showed  that  the  Union  had  that  expansive  power  was 
certain  to  take  high  rank  in  the  history  of  free  govern- 
ment. The  admission  in  1791  of  Vermont,  an  inde- 
pendent Republic,  was  that  act.     In  a  less  dramatic 


106  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

but  no  less  prophetic  way,  the  admission  of  Vermont 
was  as  significant  as  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  would  have  been  easy  for  the  Thirteen  States  to 
fritter  away  the  fruits  of  their  victory  at  Yorktown. 
By  federating  as  they  did  (and  in  at  least  five  par- 
ticulars* their  plan  differed  from  any  that  had  pre- 
viously entered  into  the  structure  of  federated  States) 
they  preserved  all  that  they  had  won.  By  admitting 
Vermont  they  opened  a  door  that  led  and  leads  to 
almost  infinite  possibilities.  The  process  of  federation 
was  simple  but  new.  The  sovereign  citizens  of  the 
Thirteen  States  specifically  transferred  to  a  new  unit  of 
power  called  "The  United  States  of  America"  certain 
authority,  and  definitely  recited  what  that  authority 
was  in  an  instrument  which  we  call  "The  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States".  Later  on  that  there 
might  be  no  misunderstanding  with  regard  to  what 
they  intended,  they  declared  in  the  X  Amendment  to 
that  Constitution  that  any  power  not  specifically  so 
ceded  to  the  central  government  was  reserved  to  the 
States  or  to  the  people.  This  larger  unit  of  power,  like 
the  original  Thirteen  units,  is  controlled  by  the  people. 
That  control  is  supreme  across  the  frontiers  not  only 
of  the  original  Thirteen  States  but  of  the  thirty-five 
others  that  have  since  joined  them  under  the  Con- 
stitution. The  supremacj"  of  the  Federal  Law,  however, 
has  not  interfered  with  the  autonomy  of  any  of  the 
Forty-eight  States  nor  with  their  local  institutions,  nor 
with  their  local  government,  except  as  local  institu- 
tions may  have  conflicted  with  the  Constitution  itself. 
Between   the   governments   of   Europe   there   is   no 

*  Taylor's  Origin  and   Growth  of   the   American    Constitution — 
Houghton  Mifflin,  1911. 


The  United  English  Nations  107 

such  controlling  power.  The  interstate  hostility  which 
we  have  destroyed  within  this  country  has  persisted 
in  Europe,  and  has  maintained  the  hard  outlines  of 
nationality  except  where  those  outlines  have  from  time 
to  time  been  changed  by  the  cruel  verdicts  of  war. 
Recently  on  account  of  increased  international  pressure 
brought  about  by  the  elimination  of  time  and  distance, 
these  units  have  been  compelled  in  self-defense  to  do 
imperfectly  and  ineffectively  what  the  Thirteen  States 
did  in  1788.  The  European  Nations  have  formed 
themselves  into  two  great  groups.  The  formation  of 
these  groups  was  really  the  prelude  to  this  war.  The 
alignment  was  made,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
for  no  other  purpose.  When  the  war  is  ended,  both 
groups  by  sheer  centrifugal  force  will  separate  into  their 
constituent  units,  and  soon  thereafter  the  units  of  one 
or  both  groups  may  fall  to  fighting  each  other  or  they 
may  make  a  different  alignment  in  preparation  for  a 
later  war.  No  \'ital  principle  binds  them  together. 
Acting  as  groups  they  do  not  express  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people.  England,  France,  Russia,  Italy  and 
Japan  can  no  more  remain  harmonious,  each  being  a 
separate  unit  of  power,  than  the  Thirteen  Colonies 
could  make  an  efficient  government  under  the  Con- 
federation of  1781. 

The  principle  which  binds  the  States  of  this  Union 
together  illustrates  the  only  process  by  which  war  can 
be  ended ;  it  offers  the  only  correct  answer  to  the  riddle 
propounded  by  the  modern  Sphinx,  Unconditioned 
Sovereignty.  Until  this  vital  relation  is  created 
amongst  the  individual  sovereigns  of  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  world  that  the  governmental  unit  expressing 
their  authority  is  of  commanding  size  and  strength. 


108  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

we  shall  have  war.  Until  the  people  assert  their 
sovereignty  and  their  power  in  this  way,  millions  will 
periodically  kill  other  millions,  each  side  praying  to 
the  same  God,  and  fighting  as  each  will  believe  for 
existence  and  liberty. 

In  the  anarchy  of  international  relations  individuals 
lose  the  dignity  of  their  sovereignty  and  become  in 
effect  slaves.  There  can  be  no  lasting  peace  until  this 
slavery  is  ended. 

The  doctrine  that  sovereignty  rests  in  the  individual 
hes  at  the  heart  of  what  we  may  call  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Tradition.  It  began  to  take  form  in  Magna  Charta. 
It  has  come  down  to  us  in  imperfect  and  sometimes 
illogical  form  through  Oliver  Cromwell  and  John 
Hampden.  It  found  a  voice  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  and 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  incarnate 
in  George  Washington,  and  found  its  first  perfect 
expression  in  Abraham  Lincoln.  Under  this  doctrine 
the  people  of  the  world  can  have  as  now,  a  multiplicity 
of  independent  sovereignties  and  war,  or  one  supreme 
expression  of  their  authority  and  peace.  They  can 
create  States  and  destroy  them.  They  can  federate 
the  world  whenever  they  really  want  to  do  so.  We 
have  apparently  reached  the  time  when,  in  the  slow 
moving  processes  of  political  evolution,  men  must  either 
take  a  great  step  towards  world  federation,  or  go  on 
fighting  until  some  people  or  some  nation,  through 
force,  become  masters  of  the  world.  The  existing 
crisis  will  finally  compel  a  more  or  less  definite  indica- 
tion of  what  the  people  really  propose  to  do.  If  they 
flinch  and  say  there  are  too  many  difficulties  in  the 
way,  that  the  problem  is  too  complex — be  sure  autoc- 
racy and  militarism  will  be  quick  to  seize  the  oppor- 


The  United  English  Nations  109 

tunity  and  once  the  world  is  readjusted  on  the  old  basis, 
with  civilization  resting  on  Sovereign  States,  with  no 
law  controlling  the  inter-state  relations  of  these  sover- 
eignties except  the  law  of  force,  and  the  outlook  for 
democracy  and  for  peace  will  not  be  hopeful. 

This  is  America's  hour.  This  is  her  time  to  speak. 
Her  Declaration  of  Independence  demands  that  she 
speak.  Every  line  of  her  history  makes  the  same 
demand.  She  should  speak  to  end  war.  But  how  may 
war  be  ended? 

Any  program  which  seeks  to  end  war  must  do  some- 
thing more  than  picture  its  horrors.  Men  can  never 
be  induced  to  stop  fighting  merely  because  war  is 
illogical,  brutal,  and  inconclusive.   They  know  that  now. 

Man  is  a  fighting  animal,  but  amongst  really  civil- 
ized men  the  fighting  impulse  demands  conquest  and 
not  blood.  With  civilization  organized  as  it  now  is, 
man's  fighting  impulse  means  war;  but  the  heroic 
qualities  which  men  exhibit  in  war  are  not,  as  some 
claim,  the  product  of  war.  The  red  blood  that  leaps 
at  the  bugle's  note  is  a  reflex  of  the  divinity  that  dwells 
in  man.  War  simply  calls  it  into  splendid  but  per- 
verted action.  The  soldier  who  bayonets  a  woman 
resisting  his  bestial  demands,  does  not  thereby  nor  in 
any  way  create  the  virtue  which  makes  the  woman 
welcome  death. 

Can  this  fighting  impulse  be  satisfied  by  war  only? 
Is  that  Nature's  law?  Is  there  no  other  way  by  which 
the  moral  as  well  as  physical  courage  of  the  common 
man  can  be  supremely  appealed  to?  Is  there  no  way 
by  which  these  qualities  can  be  applied  always  to 
construction  and  never  to  destruction? 


110  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Men  have  slain  each  other  like  beasts  and  died  Hke 
heroes  every  day  now  for  almost  two  years;  but  their 
heroism  has  been  of  a  lower  order  than  that  exhibited 
at  the  same  time  by  others  who  unheralded  have  also 
died,  not  stri\4ng  to  slay  but  to  save  their  fellows. 
Those  who  have  died  to  save  life  are  more  truly  repre- 
sentative of  the  morally  heroic  quahties  of  humanity 
than  those  who  have  died  at  the  front  in  the  frenzy 
of  battle. 

Has  peace  no  qualities  which  in  a  higher  and  to  a 
greater  degree  than  war  give  opportunity  to  the 
fighting  impulse?  What  moral,  what  heroic  appeal 
does  peace  make? 

For  fifty  years  we  have  had  substantially  continuous 
peace.  Has  the  heroic,  the  fighting  impulse  been  ap- 
pealed to  during  that  period,  and,  if  so,  what  have  been 
the  results? 

Following  Appomattox  came  an  outburst  of  energy 
in  which  there  was  some  of  the  fierceness  and  much  of 
the  ecstasy  of  battle.  The  conquest  of  the  West  and 
the  unmatched  industrial  development  of  the  nation 
during  that  period  give  us  our  answer  and  much  more. 
The  fighting  impulse  found  here  an  appeal  that  has 
not  only  conquered  a  continent  but  has  carried  it 
far  into  other  fields. 

It  has — 

Built  the  Panama  Canal; 

Quixotically  won  freedom  for  the  Cubans  and  pre- 
sented it  to  them, — for  which  now  we  have  small 
thanks; 

Conquered,  or  partially  conquered,  the  air  and  made 
it  a  larger  sea; 

Conquered,  or  at  least  subdued,  the  mysteries  under 
the  sea; 


The  United  English  Nations  111 

Applied  the  power  of  steam  in  locomotion  to  an 
extent  not  approached  by  any  other  people; 

Developed  the  telephone  and  bound  it  to  the  daily 
uses  of  life  until  it  has  become  almost  as  necessary 
as  daily  bread; 

Made  the  illimitable  and  imponderable  ether  a 
messenger  which  takes  the  human  voice  half  way 
around  the  earth,  and  may  ultimately  take  it 
through  the  silent  spaces  of  the  universe; 

Made  the  mysterious,  elusive,  subtle,  and  still  un- 
know^n  force  called  electricity  the  servant  of 
servants. 

In  the  intense  physical  and  mental  activities  which 
have  produced  these  unprecedented  results  we  have 
been  first,  or  amongst  the  first.  In  all  these  conquests 
there  has  been  the  strain  and  shock  of  real  battle. 
The  victories  won  in  these  conflicts  have  not  always 
been  without  injustice,  but  they  have  been  as  truly 
\actories — though  bloodless — as  any  won  on  land  or  sea. 

In  earlier  years  man  had  not  only  to  fight,  but  he 
had  to  kill.  He  still  has  to  fight  and  he  ought  to  fight. 
When  man  no  longer  seeks  for  something  to  overcome, 
something  to  conquer,  he  will  not  himself  be  worth 
killing. 

But  war  to-day  between  civilized  peoples  is  the 
product  of  an  utter  misapplication  of  the  fighting 
impulse.  War  was  necessary  once;  it  is  necessary 
no  longer.  It  is  necessary  no  longer  because  the  con- 
ditions that  earlier  made  it  inevitable  can  now  be 
controlled. 

War  has  been  inevitable  because  the  world  was  so 
large.  Men  could  not  understand  each  other.  It  is 
now  unnecessary,  but  as  civilization  is  organized,  more 
likely  to  recur,  because  the  world  is  so  small. 


112  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

It  was  inevitable  once  because  of  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty.  In  the  American  Union  we  have  de- 
stroyed the  evil  of  that  doctrine. 

It  was  necessary  once  because  the  majority  of 
civilized  people  believed  in  the  Divine  Right  of  certain 
families  to  rule.  It  is  unnecessary  now  because  the 
majority  of  civilized  people  believe  in  the  right  of  the 
people  to  rule  themselves. 

War  nevertheless  exists  because  the  greatest  single 
force  in  the  world  calculated  to  banish  war,  the  force 
that  instinctively  hates  war  and  all  its  works,  is  still 
a  house  divided  against  itself:  Democracy  has  not  yet 
dared  fearlessly  to  follow  its  own  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples. It  is  still  provincial;  but  its  tenets  now  claim 
so  vast  a  body  of  adherents  that  it  has  only  to  rise 
above  that  provincialism  to  do  for  the  ci\'ilized  world 
what  our  fathers  did  for  the  Western  world  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  years  ago. 

And  what  after  all  is  the  great  cause  of  war?  The 
great  cause  of  war  is  whatever  alarms  the  elemental 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  men's  intuitive  determina- 
tion to  defend  his  natural  right  to  life,  liberty  and 
happiness:  the  fear  that  others  plan  to  take  those 
rights  away.  This  instinct  first  made  man's  ci\'ic  unit 
his  family  and  his  home  a  cave;  then  it  found  a  larger 
safety  in  the  clan,  then  in  the  tribe,  and  finally  in  the 
nation.  It  is  instantly  aroused  whenever  the  nation, 
as  every  considerable  nation  now  must,  projects  itself 
into  the  unorganized,  lawless  and  primitive  portion  of 
society  called  the  world  of  internationahty. 

Before  we  can  have  peace  we  must  end  the  savagery 
of  internationahty.  We  must  hunt  out  of  this  no- 
man's  land  the  serpents  of  fear  and  jealousy;  we  must 


The  United  English  Nations  113 

slay  the  tigers  of  greed  and  ambition.  We  must 
become  truh'  democratic.    How? 

Ultimately  through  the  Federation  of  the  democratic 
world,  but,  as  a  first  step,  through  the  reunion  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  world.  This  reunion  must  be  accom- 
phshed  not  to  over-awe  any  other  people,  not  to  pile 
up  force  with  which  to  meet  force,  not  to  eliminate 
small  nationalities  or  make  great  ones  afraid,  but 
primarily  to  make  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  really  demo- 
cratic— democratic  inter-state  as  well  as  intra-state — 
democratic  as  our  forty-eight  States  are  internally 
democratic.  Such  a  Federation  (not  Confederation) 
would  almost  certainly  come  to  include— perhaps 
before  its  completion — France,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
probably  the  Scandinavian  Countries  and  Spain,  and 
possibly  some  of  the  Republics  of  South  America. 
"The  Parliament  of  Man"  would  then  be  something 
more  substantial  than  a  poet's  dream. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  world  has  had  only  one  great 
division  in  its  empire  since  the  days  of  King  Alfred. 
The  people  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies  exercised  their 
power  as  indi\'idual  sovereigns  and  revolted  against 
the  purblind  folly  of  a  King  who  was  half-insane,  and 
ministers  who  were  selfish  and  stupid.  That  revolt 
broke  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  in  halves;  but  it  nowhere 
changed  the  Anglo-Saxon  faith  or  the  Anglo-Saxon 
theory  of  human  rights. 

The  admission  of  Vermont  confirmed  the  breach  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  That  as  a  bald  fact  was  a 
calamity,  but  it  brought  blessings  too.  By  the  ad- 
mission of  Vermont  the  new  nation  showed  itself  not 
only  free  but  self-sufficient.  This  reacted  on  the 
Mother  Country.    The  folly  which  alienated  the  Thir- 


114  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

teen  Colonies  was  not  repeated.  The  great  Englishmen 
who  had  denounced  that  folly  came  into  power.  Great 
Britain  entered  upon  that  unparalleled  period  of 
colonization  that  has  put  a  circle  of  English-speaking 
nations  round  the  world  and  brought  English  law  and 
justice  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth. 

Canada,  long  flouted  and  neglected  by  us,  has 
finally  sprung  into  national  being,  as  English  as  the 
English,  as  democratic  as  we  are — bone  of  our  bone 
and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  The  Commonwealth  of  Aus- 
tralia has  been  created  under  a  constitution  largely 
copied  from  ours.  The  South  African  Union  is  rounding 
out  another  great,  if  racially  heterogeneous  people. 
New  Zealand,  Ne^v^^oundland,  Egypt,  India,  all  the 
other  dependencies  of  Great  Britain,  have  found  the 
great  mother  just  and  wise.  Tested  suddenly  by  an 
assault  of  unprecedented  fury,  the  loosely  held  units 
of  the  British  Empire  have  stood  fast  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world — outside  of  the  United  States  of  America — 
and  all  that  it  controls  has  been  hammered  into  a  Union 
which  will  become  closer  with  the  post-bellum  re- 
adjustments. The  English  states  which  may  rightly 
claim  the  dignity  of  nations,  Canada,  Australia,  South 
Africa,  New  Zealand,  have  all  drifted  constantly 
towards  our  standards  and  our  ideals  rather  than 
towards  those  of  earlier  England.  Each  has  a  written 
Constitution;  none  has  an  aristocracy;  and  while  all 
cling  to  the  nomenclature  and  some  of  the  forms  of 
monarchy,  all  are  thoroughly  democratic.  The  IMother 
Country  herself  has  moved  in  the  same  direction. 
New  and  \'iolent  readjustments  will  follow  the  close  of 
this  war.  The  British  Empire,  so-called,  is  certain  then 
to  be  reconstructed.    The  anomalous  conditions  under 


The  United  English  Nations  115 

which  Canada,  for  example,  finds  herself  a  nation  and 
yet  not  a  sovereignty  will  not  be  continued.  Canada 
had  no  voice  whatever  in  deciding  that  there  should 
be  a  war.  She  had  and  has  no  control  over  the  foreign 
relations  of  Great  Britain,  though  she  now^  realizes 
that  whatever  Great  Britain  does  binds  her.  Canada 
will  have  no  voice  in  making  peace.  In  the  realm  where 
the  supreme  questions  of  war  and  peace  are  determined, 
Canada  is  less  sovereign  than  the  States  of  our  Union. 
Through  their  representatives  in  Congress  our  States 
speak  in  the  decision  of  all  these  supreme  issues. 

Let  us  bring  the  argument  still  closer  home. 

Suppose  Great  Britain  had  been  as  wise  in  her 
attitude  toward  the  Thirteen  Colonies  in  1776  and 
earlier  as  she  has  been  in  her  relations  with  Canada  and 
AustraUa.  Picture  America  to-day  as  a  Dominion  of 
the  British  Empire.  Is  it  thinkable  that  we  would 
long  consent  to  have  the  questions  of  war  and  peace 
settled  for  us  by  a  Parliament  which  represents  the 
British  Isles  only?  There  can  be  but  one  answer  to 
that  question  put  to  Anglo-Saxons  anywhere.  There- 
fore for  Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa 
and  Newfoundland,  there  can  be  no  half-way  course 
when  peace  comes.  They  must  then  become  actually 
independent  as  the  Thirteen  Colonies  did — an  utterly 
unlikely  proceeding — or  the  whole  structure  of  the 
British  Empire  must  be  changed.  These  Anglo-Saxon 
States  cannot  otherwise  fully  apply  to  their  own 
benefit  the  principles  of  justice  and  of  liberty  for  which 
thousands  of  their  sons  have  unselfishly  and  heroically 
died.  This  reconstruction  will  vastly  increase  the 
homogeneity  of  the  English-speaking  world,  but  will 
still  leave  it  split  in  twain. 


116  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

What  an  opportunity!  What  a  glorious  opportunity! 
After  the  hideous  ruin  of  1914-15-16:  after  seeing 
Europe  do  what  our  States  would  certainly  have  done 
but  for  Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  great  Federalists 
who  drove  the  Federal  Constitution  through  in  1787-8, 
after  seeing  the  Southern  States  fearfully  attempt  its 
ruin  in  1861-5;  after  coming  ourselves  up  out  of  the 
world  of  littleness  and  jealousy  and  fear;  after  feeling 
the  pride  that  citizenship  in  this  great  Republic  justifies 
— can  we  not  now  see  a  nobler  picture,  do  we  not  get 
a  wider  vision,  do  we  not  hear  the  call  of  a  still  more 
majestic  citizenship?  What  would  an  Anglo-Saxon 
world,  joined  as  our  forty-eight  States  are  joined,  mean? 
Geographicall}^  what  would  it  mean? 

It  would  comprehend  16,500,000  square  miles 
of  territory  as  against  16,290,000  square  miles  in 
the  dominions  of  the  remaining  six  great  powers, 
allowing  Germany  credit  for  all  her  ante-bellum 
colonial  possessions.  Such  an  Anglo-Saxon  empire 
would  embrace  most  of  the  choice  territory  of 
the  world,  including  both  the  Suez  and  the  Panama 
Canals. 
In  population  what  would  it  mean? 

It  would  have  under  its  Constitution  550,000,000 
— white  and  colored — against  496,000,000  for  the 
other  six  powers. 

In  wealth  what  would  it  mean? 

Its  wealth  would  approximate  S300,000,000,000 
against  S250,000,000,000  for  the  others. 

Its  commerce 

including  exports  and  imports  would  total  nearly 
$14,000,000,000  per  annum  against  §12,000,000,000 
for  the  other  great  powers  on  the  basis  of  ante- 
bellum conditions. 


The  United  English  Nations  117 

Such  a  Federation  would  be  a  menace  to  no  nation; 
it  could  not  be  formed  for  aggression — its  democratic 
units  would  forbid.  It  would  interfere  no  more  with 
the  local  government  and  institutions  of  its  constituent 
nations  than  our  Federal  Government  interferes  with 
the  internal  machinery  of  New  York  State.  It  would 
ennoble  local  citizenship,  intensify  local  pride  and 
preserve  local  institutions. 

Can  it  be  done? 

Of  course  it  can  be  done. 

Will  it  be  done? 

That  involves  the  answer  to  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx. 
Tell  me  whether  America  is  a  modern  Oedipus  and  you 
already  have  your  answer. 

It  is  certain  that  the  old  forces,  which  have  con- 
trolled civilization,  will,  at  the  close  of  this  war,  be 
exhausted.  They  can  commit  no  more  murders,  create 
no  more  staggering  debts,  breed  no  more  bitterness 
and  hate,  until  they  have  had  time  to  recuperate. 
Will  the  people  seize  the  opportunity  while  the  old 
doctrines  are  discredited  and  force  a  readjustment 
that  will  cast  the  Doctrine  of  Unconditioned  Sover- 
eignty on  the  scrap-heap  of  history?  That  Doctrine 
is  as  much  an  anachronism  to-day  as  the  Ptolemaic 
theory  of  the  universe. 

Some  years  ago,  Lord  Roseberry,  speaking  as  Lord 
Rector  to  the  students  of  Glasgow  University,  tried  to 
imagine  what  would  have  happened  if  George  III  had 
hstened  to  reason,  if  representatives  of  the  American 
Colonies  had  been  admitted  to  the  Imperial  Parhament 
and  America  had  been  preserved  to  the  British  Crown. 
He  saw  the  seat  of  Empire  transferred  by  sheer  force 
of  necessity  across  the  Atlantic.     He  tried  to  picture 


118  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  stately  procession  across  the  sea  of  King  and 
Parliament,  of  Ministers  and  Judges.  He  admitted, 
apart  from  all  other  considerations,  that  he  would 
even  now  approve  of  such  a  transfer  if  the  wars  of  the 
Revolution  and  of  1812  with  all  their  bitter  memories 
could  be  blotted  out. 

The  seat  of  Anglo-Saxon  Empire  has  already  made 
the  stately  journey  that  Lord  Roseberry  saw  in  his 
vision.  The  white  population  of  the  entire  British 
Empire  is  only  a  little  more  than  one-half  that  of  the 
United  States. 

Never  before,  since  responsible  government  began, 
has  so  large  and  rich  a  portion  of  the  earth  as  that 
lying  between  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  South  and  the 
North  Pole,  between  the  Atlantic  on  the  East  and  the 
Pacific  on  the  West,  been  occupied  by  an  almost 
wholly  homogeneous  people, — homogeneous  in  speech, 
in  blood,  in  literature,  in  law,  and  in  ideals.  Great 
Britain  is  now  the  far  easterly  outpost  of  a  prodigious 
empire.  If  we  start  at  the  Meridian  of  Greenwich, 
skirt  the  Western  shore  of  Europe  to  the  thirtieth 
parallel,  and  then  travel  west  we  shall  find,  north  of 
that  parallel,  a  world  solidly  Anglo-Saxon  to  the  anti- 
podes. If  then  we  pass  to  the  south  of  the  Equator 
and  still  westward,  we  find  New  Zealand  and  the  vast 
reaches  of  Australia.  From  the  Meridian  of  Greenwich 
westward  to  the  parallel  that  cuts  Western  Australia 
is  three-quarters  of  the  way  around  the  earth.  The 
possibilities  of  this  world-girdling,  ocean-encompassing 
empire,  united  in  fact  as  it  now  is  in  its  love  of  liberty 
and  in  its  ideals,  stagger  the  imagination. 

Every  reason  advanced  in  1788  by  Washington  and 
Hamilton  and  Madison  for  the  creation  of  this  Union 


The  United  English  Nations  119 

pleads  trumpet-tongued  to-day  for  the  creation  of  this 
larger  Union,  for  the  creation  of  the  United  English 
Nations.  If  such  a  proposal  were  now  placed  squarely 
before  the  English  Nations,  it  is  lamentably  probable 
that  the  one  most  responsive  would  not  be  ours.  It 
may  be  necessary  that  we  be  seared  and  bhstered  by 
the  flames  of  war  before  we  rise  to  a  due  appreciation 
of  what  our  Fathers  did  for  us,  a  full  understanding  of 
our  high  duty  to  humanity. 

With  Great  Britain  we  have  already  progressed  far 
on  the  road  that  leads  to  Anglo-Saxon  Federation. 
We  have  admitted  the  essential  facts,  only  the  non- 
essential, but  practically  ihe  most  difficult  questions 
remain  to  be  settled. 

For  a  hundred  years  we  have  maintained  on  our 
northern  border  over  three  thousand  miles  of  frontier 
unfortified.  Why  is  it  unfortified?  Because  both  sides 
believe  that  any  serious  difficulty  there  would  be  un- 
pardonable— not  to  say  criminal — that  the  relations 
between  the  two  nations  are  such  that  fortifications 
would  misrepresent  the  attitude  and  wishes  of  both 
peoples  and  of  both  governments. 

Admirable  as  that  arrangement  is,  it  solves  no 
problems;  and  no  thoughtful  man  can  deny  that  there 
are  problems.  Two  years  ago  we  might  have  needed 
evidence  of  the  savage  extremes  to  which  nations  will 
go  when  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  asserts  itself, 
when  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  aroused. 
To-day  we  need  no  such  evidence. 

To  fortify  that  frontier  would  be  to  revert  to  bar- 
barism. To  leave  it  unfortified  assumes  a  condition 
which,  at  best,  exists  perilously.  We  are  like  children 
playing  at  peace  and  "making  believe"  that  the  Anglo- 


120  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Saxon  Republic  already  exists.  We  have  on  neither 
side  as  yet  had  the  courage  to  face  the  truth. 

All  along  that  far-flung  frontier  the  identical  peril 
that  drove  the  Thirteen  States  into  Federation  exists 
but  now  sleeps.  It  is  folly  to  say  that  it  will  never 
awake.  If  the  existing  division  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  persists,  it  is  certain  to  awake  some  day.  It  may 
awake  to-morrow. 

The  close  of  this  war  will  bring  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
nations  problems  almost  identical  with  those  that 
faced  the  Colonies  after  the  Peace  of  Paris.  Have 
Wilson  and  Hughes  and  their  associates  here,  have 
Bryce  and  Grey  and  Asquith  and  Lloyd  George  and 
their  associates  in  Great  Britain,  the  vision  and  the 
courage  of  Washington  and  Madison,  of  Jay  and  of 
Hamilton?  If  they  have,  federation  will  come,  the 
riddle  of  this  Sphinx  will  be  answered;  if  they  have 
not,  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition  which  is  now  glorious 
may  gradually  lose  its  inspiration  and  its  meaning. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Republic:  The  United  English 
Nations.    Who  shall  estimate  its  significance? 

Its  territory,  apart  from  the  dominions  of  its  member 
Nations  would  be  as  immaterial  as  the  realm  which 
Jesus  described  when  he  said:  "My  Kingdom  is  not 
of  this  earth."  Physically  it  would  be  greater  than 
Rome  ever  was.  Morally  it  would  be  master  of  war 
and  of  the  destinies  of  the  human  race. 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  1776 
AND  THE  FLAG 


THE 
DECLARATION  OF  1776  AND  THE  FLAG 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE 
CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE,  CLEVELAND,  OHIO.  OCTOBER  3,  1916 


1^  EN  are  almost  ashamed  to  be  men  in  these 
days.  Governmentally  they  have  failed 
so  pitifully.  In  the  larger  relations  of  life, 
in  the  matters  which  really  test  their  sani- 
ty and  capacity  they  are  being  decorated 
for  deeds  which  done  ordinarily  would  take  them  to  the 
gibbet  or  the  electric  chair.  The  one  rational  animal 
has  either  gone  mad  or  was  never  rational  except  in  a 
small  way.  The  lower  animals  are  rational  in  a  small 
way.  The  world  \\dthin  which  men  are  rational  and 
efficient  governmentally  seems  to  be  materially  smaller 
than  that  other  world  within  which  men  are  clearly 
irrational  and  inefficient.  Men  are  big  enough  for 
world-wide  business;  but  as  yet  they  apparently  are 
not  big  enough  for  world-wide  government. 

Reason  means  the  power  to  differentiate,  to  integrate, 
to  deduce.  Men  are  assumed  to  have  these  powers 
under  all  conditions.  They  know  danger  when  they 
see  it.  They  don't  fool  themselves.  They  know  a  tiger 
will  kill;  that  typhoid  can  devastate  a  community;  that 
diphtheria  is  the  natural  enemy  of  the  child.  They 
don't  coddle  and  feed  tigers  and  assume  that  they  can 
be  made  into  household  pets ;  they  look  after  the  purity 

9  121 


122  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

of  their  drinking  water  and  of  their  milk;  they  revere 
the  names  of  the  men  who  developed  the  diphtheritic 
antitoxin ;  they  are  strugghng  to  find  the  formula  which 
will  deliver  them  from  the  terrors  of  infantile  paralysis. 

By  these  processes  they  have  built  the  great  fabric  of 
present-day  civilization.  At  infinite  pains  and  cost  they 
have  covered  the  earth  with  palaces,  put  the  product  of 
their  toil  into  institutions  whose  value  depends  on  their 
permanency — whose  permanency  in  turn  depends  on 
their  safety;  and  at  the  same  time  they  have  ignored — 
have  indeed  helped  to  create — conditions  in  which  lurk 
tigers  fiercer  than  those  with  which  prehistoric  man 
struggled,  in  which  disease  and  terror  reign  supreme. 
They  have  built  splendidly  and,  unconsciouslj'-  at  first 
but  deliberately  afterward,  have  put  under  the  struc- 
ture a  mine  which  was  certain  ultimately  to  obliterate 
in  one  hellish  blast  all  the  beauty  and  utility  so  slowly 
and  painfully  created. 

This  was  not  a  rational  process.  In  the  larger  rela- 
tions of  a  reborn  world,  in  handling  the  new  govern- 
mental problems  that  have  arisen  through  the  elimina- 
tion of  time  and  distance,  man  appears  to  have  Uttle 
more  intelligence  than  a  fish. 

While  building  the  delicate  and  complex  structure 
called  ci\41ization  men  assumed,  amongst  Christian 
peoples  at  least,  that  humanity  had  advanced  far  out 
of  the  world  of  savagery.  They  read  with  sympathetic 
wonder  of  the  savage  cruelty  of  the  North  American 
Indian.  They  tried  to  picture  the  scenes  in  Wyoming 
Valley  and  at  Deerfield  when  the  red  man  gave  fuU 
play  to  his  hate  and  spared  neither  youth  nor  age.  Men 
were  disposed  smuglj^  to  thank  God  that  such  days 
were  passed. 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  123 

But  in  sheer  cruelty,  in  fiendish,  helUsh,  malignant 
disregard  of  all  humane  impulses,  no  massacre  by  the 
red  man  of  America,  no  deed  committed  by  any  savage 
people  at  any  time  equals  any  one  of  a  half-dozen  inci- 
dents of  this  war.  We  may  console  ourselves,  how- 
ever, with  the  reflection  that  there  are  people — some  of 
them  non-Christian — who  would  scorn  under  any  con- 
ditions to  do  such  deeds. 

What  is  there  in  the  larger  problems  of  government 
that  makes  man  irrational?  In  business  man  has  been 
as  big  as  the  opportunities  of  a  new  born  world.  He 
has  sent  the  product  of  his  labors  over  every  sea.  He 
has  trusted  his  fellowman  almost  without  limit.  His 
\dsion  has  been  as  high  as  Heaven,  as  comprehensive 
as  the  oceans;  he  has  been  entirely  rational;  entirely 
logical;  completely  sane. 

But  in  government  he  has  been  quite  otherwise.  A 
mysterious  something  called  sovereignty  has  limited 
his  action,  limited  his  thinking,  blasted  his  reasoning 
powers,  and  finally  brought  down  in  woeful  ruin  the 
splendid  creation  of  his  infinite  labors.  Between  mod- 
ern nations,  acting  as  nations,  the  law  of  the  jungle 
rules.  Rational  in  all  other  matters,  men  are  irra- 
tional in  this.  Driven  by  the  creative  impulses  of  life 
they  toil  and  study,  they  dig  and  delve,  they  dream 
and  create,  they  put  their  all — all  their  property,  all 
their  hopes,  all  their  dreams  into  units  of  society  called 
states,  and  at  the  same  time  plant  the  seeds  of  death  in 
the  very  vitals  of  the  organization,  and  when  the  day 
of  reckoning  comes  they  weep  over  the  calamity  and 
the  wickedness  of  war. 

Under  the  governmental  relations  of  modern  states 
nothing  but  war  was  possible;   there  was  no   other 


124  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

answer  to  the  riddle.  Consider  again  how  irrational 
the  process  is:  as  human  beings  men  create  at  hea\"y 
cost  the  intricate  and  deHcate  fabric  of  modem  states; 
as  patriots  the  same  men  at  the  same  time  deliberately 
prepare  the  forces  that  mean  ruin  to  that  fabric,  and 
finally  themselves  launch  the  forces  of  destruction 
against  themselves.  Could  irrationality  go  further? 
The  beasts  of  the  field  never  surpassed  that. 

As  citizens  men  do  splendid  things  in  times  of  peace; 
as  patriots  they  do  splendidly  dramatic  and  heroic 
things  in  times  of  war.  We  are  still  disposed  to  think 
that  the  patriot  is  greater  than  the  citizen.  But  doesn't 
that  in  part  explain  this  irrationahty?  War  is  seldom 
the  product  of  sane  processes. 

Observing  the  heroism  of  men  in  war  William  James 
says  that  we  must  discover  the  moral  equivalent  of 
war  before  wars  can  be  ended.  Abraham  Lincoln  said 
in  his  second  inaugural  that  if  the  war  had  to  "continue 
until  all  the  wealth  piled  up  by  the  bondsman's  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk, 
and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall 
be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword  *  *  *  * 
so  still  it  must  be  said  that  the  judgments  of  the  Lord 
are  true  and  righteous  altogether."  James  sees  in  war 
something  which  creates  heroic  qualities  in  men.  Lin- 
coln saw  in  war  the  visible  e\'idence  of  the  wrath  of  the 
Almighty.  The  central  thought  in  James's  idea  is 
that  men's  heroism  and  capacity  for  self-sacrifice  can 
be  aroused  only  by  assault,  by  some  deadly  peril.  The 
central  thought  in  Lincoln's  immortal  utterance  is  the 
retribution  which  men's  inherent  sense  of  right  ulti- 
mately insists  on  and  achieves.  Both  are  negative 
conceptions.     War  doesn't   create  moral  heroism;  it 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  125 

merely  calls  it  into  action.  War  doesn't  achieve  jus- 
tice; in  Lincoln's  gloomy  and  fatalistic  philosophy  it 
becomes  Nemesis.  Neither  conception  reveals  affirma- 
tively the  moral  possibilities  of  men. 

The  basis  of  modern  ci\'ilization  is  the  unit  called  the 
nation.  Out  of  this  has  sprung  the  madness  if  not  the 
cruelty  of  modern  men.  Why?  And  how?  The  life 
of  every  considerable  nation  goes  back  to  a  period  when 
the  world  was  many  diameters  larger  than  it  is  to-day. 
In  the  beginning  distances  were  cruelly  great.  Inter- 
course— which  ought  always  to  have  been  the  mother 
of  International  Understanding — was  limited  and  diffi- 
cult. Life  was  indeed  a  struggle.  Heroic  memories 
cluster  about  all  national  beginnings,  and  tradition — 
which  is  sometimes  the  mother  of  lies — has  always 
busily  plied  its  trade.  The  land  "where  the  Fathers 
died"  naturally  became  sacred.  Governmental  im- 
pact between  nations  took  men  always  into  a  lawless 
and  dangerous  zone.  By  bitter  experience  men  learned 
that  safety  lay  only  in  preserving  the  fatherland  at  all 
hazards.  As  this  impact  became  stronger  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  more  and  more  asserted  itself.  People 
soon  came  to  understand  that  this  international  friction 
meant  ultimately  the  sur\dval  of  the  strongest.  There- 
fore to  preserve  the  fatherland  the  nation  must  itself 
become  strong:  strong  in  numbers,  strong  in  wealth, 
strong  in  territory,  strong  in  armies,  strong  in  navies. 
Then  came  the  miracles  of  modern  science.  The  world 
shrunk  almost  in  a  night  from  a  huge  sphere  covered 
by  unexplored  continents  inhabited  by  monsters,  to  a 
spinning  speck  where  time  meant  nothing  in  inter- 
course and  distance  substantially  disappeared.  The 
new  conditions  did  not  clarify,  but  on  the  contrary 


126  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

complicated  the  old  problems  by  crowding  the  nations 
still  closer  together,  without  eliminating  any  of  the 
old  fears  and  prejudices.  The  world  shrunk,  but  its 
problems  grew. 

We  sometimes  speak  of  a  people,  to  whom  the  oppor- 
tunity of  self-government  has  come,  as  being  unfit  for 
it,  not  "up  to"  it,  unable  to  grasp  its  meaning  and 
likely  therefore  to  misuse  opportunity  and  destroy 
themselves.  That  observation  can  be  applied  to  the 
entire  modern  world,  to  the  whole  problem  of  the  rela- 
tions of  the  great  powers.  It  explains  the  ruin  of 
Europe  and  the  cataclysm  which  has  directly  or  indi- 
rectly involved  all  ci\dlization. 

Our  ci\alization,  based  on  separate  sovereignties  each 
claiming  and  maintaining  exclusive  and  unlimited  au- 
thority over  its  own  people,  was  not  "up  to"  the  de- 
mands of  a  world  compacted  by  steam  and  electricity. 
Seven  of  the  eight  great  powers  have  fallen  into  inter- 
national anarchy  from  exactly  the  same  causes  that  have 
ruined  Mexico.  The  great  opportunity  came,  but  the 
Powers  were  unable  to  shake  off  the  barbarism  of  nation- 
aUty,  unwilling  to  rise  into  the  larger  world  of  inter- 
nationality.  They  have  failed,  as  utterly  as  Mexico 
has,  to  meet  opportunity.  The  morality  of  their  pres- 
ent position  is  no  better  than  that  of  Mexico. 

The  ends  of  the  earth  have  fallen  together.  The 
conditions  that  necessarily  made  men  misunderstand 
each  other,  fear  each  other,  and  periodically  kill  each 
other,  have  passed  away.  But  while  the  people  as 
citizens  know  this  the  people  as  patriots  do  not,  and  so 
the  killing  goes  on,  goes  on  as  never  before. 

Internationalism,  Brotherhood — call  it  what  you 
will — beckons  to  us.     It  is  the  new  Heaven  and  the 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  127 

New  Earth ;  it  should  be  to  the  civiHzed  nations  what  the 
great  charter  of  government  produced  in  Independence 
Hall  in  1787  became  to  the  Thirteen  American  States. 
But  nationality  rooted  deep  in  tradition  and  institu- 
tionalism  fetters  the  world.  It  will  not  easily  yield. 
It  is  entrenched  behind  every  crown,  every  rule  of 
caste,  every  army,  even  behind  the  integrity  of  demo- 
cratic states.  It  flaunts  the  flag,  symbol  of  its  bitter 
experiences  and  heroic  memories,  in  the  faces  of  the 
people;  the  people  thrill  to  its  call  and  gladly  go  out  to 
die  by  millions.  No  other  spectacle  so  cruel  and  hu- 
miliating has  ever  disfigured  this  fair  earth;  no  such 
failure  has  damned  humanity  since  it  forfeited  Paradise. 
We  know  that  humanity  itself,  with  all  its  faults,  is 
not  an  aggregation  of  bloodthirstiness.  We  know  that 
the  people  do  not  want  to  commit  wholesale  murder. 
They  want  to  be  left  alone  to  solve  the  ordinary  prob- 
lems of  life,  which  are  difficult  enough.  They  hate 
war.  Naturally  they  do  not  believe  that  their  civilized 
neighbors  uninfluenced  want  to  wrong  them.  But 
when  a  certain  call  issues  they  act  unquestioningly. 
The  flag  has  long  been  the  call  to  battle,  the  old  tribal 
symbol,  the  call  of  the  clan.  It  is  still  the  appealing 
e\ddence  of  our  pro\'incialism  in  government — the 
refuge  of  pohticians  as  well  as  of  Kings,  Kaisers  and 
Czars.  But  isn't  it  coming  rapidly  to  be  something 
larger  and  finer  than  that?  What  is  it  that  grips  your 
heart  when  you  see  the  flag  ripple  in  the  sunlight? 
What  is  it  that  makes  your  blood  leap  when  you  hear  it 
rustle  in  the  breeze?  Is  it  the  desire  to  kill  your  fellow- 
men?  Certainly  not.  Is  it  greed  or  ambition  or  pride 
or  a  disregard  of  the  rights  of  other  human  beings? 
In  a  democracy  again  certainly  not.     Can  you  analyze 


128  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

it?  There  isn't  anything  just  hke  it.  It  can,  in  a 
moment,  transform  a  gentle,  shrinking  woman  into  a 
Joan  of  Arc.  It  can  make  a  ne'er-do-well  into  a  hero. 
It  can  stir  depths  in  a  man  whose  existence  he  did  not 
suspect.  The  impulse  so  aroused  is  not  destructive, 
not  negative,  it  is  positive :  it  is  aroused  by  the  flag  but 
it  is  greater  than  the  flag.  In  these  days  and  in  this 
Country  the  flag  touches  something  in  the  soul  that  is 
not  limited,  not  selfish,  something  greater  than  pa- 
triotism, something  that  rises  to  the  level  of  conscious- 
ness only  when  the  blood  leaps  and  the  eyes  moisten. 

The  world  will  never  be  really  rational  and  wars  will 
never  end  until  these  mysterious  qualities  emerge  fully, 
in  response  to  a  positive  appeal.  They  can  be  aroused 
but  not  interpreted  by  the  flag ;  they  can  be  stirred  but 
not  inspired  by  fear.  War  gives  only  a  picture  of  man's 
heroic  capacity  perverted  and  misapplied.  The  great 
problems  of  society  cannot  be  solved  by  negation 
and  fear. 

Progress  toward  better  standards  has  been  made. 
Except  in  the  wars  of  the  Crusades  when  religious 
enthusiasm  drove  men  into  affirmative  action  for  what 
they  believed  to  be  a  holy  cause,  and  except  in  the 
wars  of  Napoleon  or  others  of  his  sort  when  it  was  in 
effect  frankly  admitted  that  conquest  alone  was  aimed 
at,  wars  in  modern  times  professedly^  at  least  have  been 
fought  defensively.  Neither  side  in  Europe  admits 
that  it  wanted  war  on  August  1,  1914,  or  that  it  began 
the  war.  Each  side  has  been  busy  for  two  years  trying 
to  prove  that  it  did  not  begin  the  war  and  that  it  is 
fighting  defensively  for  existence;  and  in  the  latter 
claim  at  least  both  sides  are  right. 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  129 

Out  of  the  blind  groping  of  men  has  at  last  been 
evolved  a  world-opinion  such  that  no  nation  now  dares 
to  begin  a  war  of  clear  aggression,  and  admit  that  pur- 
pose. This  marks  a  tremendous  advance;  it  indicates 
the  birth  ultimately  of  a  controlUng  world  opinion. 

One  of  the  most  potent  forces — perhaps  the  most 
potent — in  the  creation  of  this  world-opinion  has  been 
this  government  and  its  history  for  a  hundred  and 
twenty-eight  years.  Territorially  limited— as  of  course 
it  had  to  be — it  nevertheless  rests  upon  principles  which 
are  the  real  source  of  the  powerful  emotions  evoked  by 
the  fluttering  flag.  The  Declaration  of  Independence 
laid  down  the  doctrine  of  individual  inalienable  rights. 
This  was  made  \atal  in  the  Federal  Constitution  and 
was  an  entirely  new  thing  in  government. 

Our  Federal  Constitution  was  created  by  the  sover- 
eign acts  of  indi\'idual  citizens.  That  Constitution 
affirmatively  defines  certain  inahenable  indi\ddual  rights 
and  negatively  denies  further  existence  to  certain  gov- 
ernmental practices  and  says  in  effect — "These  affirma- 
tions and  prohibitions  may  not  be  disturbed  even  by 
majorities."  Having  declared  these  principles  the 
fathers  created  a  great  Court  with  power  to  protect 
them,  with  power  to  neutralize  any  legislative  attack 
on  them.  This  was  the  first  concrete  governmental 
expression  of  the  doctrine  that  sovereignty  dwells  in 
the  individual,  that  states  are  mere  instrumentalities 
for  the  promotion  of  men's  happiness,  that  the  right  to 
life,  to  liberty,  and  to  property,  are  inherent  and  not 
to  be  alienated  by  any  external  authority  whatever. 

Given  the  belief  that  sovereignty  dwells  in  the  indi- 
vidual and  not  primarily  in  the  state,  given  the  belief 
that  every  individual  sovereign  has  certain  rights  which 


130  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

no  majority  may  invade,  and  all  that  is  lacking  to  end 
war  is  courage,  vision  and  great  leadership — such  as 
our  fathers  had  in  1788.  The  gradual  extinction  of 
the  savage  fears  aroused  by  separate  sovereignties  would 
follow.  The  superstition  that  for  centuries  has  sus- 
tained government  by  Divine  Right  or  by  some  right 
other  than  man's  individual,  inaUenable  right  would 
pass.  Between  two  peoples,  between  any  number  of 
peoples,  so  believing  war  would  at  once  become  utterly 
unnatural.  Wherever  the  doctrine  of  inahenable  rights 
was  really  adhered  to  war  would  become  a  crime  with- 
out palliation.  The  irrationality,  the  unnatural  and 
artificially  created  fear  which  have  heretofore  partially 
explained  the  savage  conduct  of  men  would  no  longer 
exist.  With  this  condition  would  come  a  controlUng 
appeal  to  the  morally  heroic  quahties  of  man  and  the 
flag  would  become  the  symbol  not  of  a  sovereignty  but 
of  humanity. 

The  logic  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
probably  not  fully  appreciated  even  by  the  men  who 
signed  it.  The  Declaration  was  the  explanation,  the 
justification  of  what  the  Colonies  were  about  to  do. 
They  were  about  to  set  up  a  new  government — although 
when  the  Declaration  was  issued  they  were  by  no  means 
prepared  to  set  up  an  effective  government — and  they 
justified  what  they  were  about  to  do  by  a  declaration 
of  principles  which  asserted  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  and  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights.  They  thereby  affirmed — 
whether  they  knew  it  or  not — that  sovereignty  as  a 
thing  apart  from  the  individual,  had  served  its  purpose 
and  must  be  superseded  by  something  broader.  They 
estabhshed  a  government  a  few  years  later  as  nearly 


The  Declaraiion  of  1776  and  the  Flag  131 

consistent  with  those  declarations  as  the  times  permit- 
ted. The  new  State  was,  and  had  to  be,  in  essential 
conflict  with  the  doctrines  which  its  founders  professed. 
The  doctrine  of  inalienable  rights  and  the  practices 
of  sovereignty  were  as  irreconcilable  then  as  they  are 
now.  We  have  followed  that  contradictory  program  as 
closely  as  we  could  since  1789.  We  have  welcomed  the 
restless  and  oppressed  of  nearly  all  the  earth — including 
many  who  do  not  understand  our  doctrine  or  compre- 
hend oiu-  ideals.  We  have  spread  this  doctrine  from 
ocean  to  ocean.  There  are  now  forty-eight  stars  in  the 
blue  field  of  our  flag  instead  of  thirteen.  Expansion 
along  those  lines  has  seemingly  reached  its  limit  and, 
if  the  principles  of  our  Declaration  are  to  be  further 
apphed,  other  Nations  must  governmentally  subscribe 
to  our  creed. 

The  inalienable  rights  of  man  asserted  in  the 
Declaration  and  embodied  in  the  Constitution  are  now 
directly  attacked  by  the  necessities  of  a  civilization 
based  on  separate  and  practically  unrelated  sovereign 
units,  a  condition  which  flatly  contradicts  the  funda- 
mentals of  our  faith,  and  paradoxical  as  it  sounds,  we 
are  and  as  the  world  is  organized  must  remain  a 
party  to  the  attack. 

Here,  then,  is  exactly  the  problem  of  the  world. 

Where  does  sovereignty  rest? 

Few  can  be  found  in  any  democratic  country  who 
will  admit  that  it  rests  with  certain  families  especially 
selected  by  Divine  Favor.  Some  may  be  found  who 
believe  that  it  rests  in  the  collective  voice  of  a  democ- 
racy as  a  thing  apart  from  the  individual  members  of 
that  democracy.  Most  of  us  believe  that  it  lies  in  the 
individual,  is  inalienable,  and  that  it  carries  certain 


132  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

rights  which  may  not  be  invaded  either  by  King  or 
Demos. 

If  that  Doctrine  be  sound  it  means  a  democracy  of 
humanity;  it  means  the  end  of  Kingcraft,  the  end  of 
sovereignty  as  now  understood  and  enforced. 

In  spite  of  the  barriers,  natural  and  artificial,  which 
now  di\dde  humanity  into  hostile  camps,  business  has 
done  what  the  Declaration  of  Independence  professed, 
what  governments  can  do  only  in  a  limited  way ;  it  has 
created  a  democracy  of  humanity;  it  has  given  the 
principles  of  our  Declaration  a  broader  application  than 
that  made  by  the  government  erected  on  the  Declara- 
tion. It  has  demonstrated  that  it  is  practicable  to 
enforce  these  principles— even  across  the  frontiers  of 
sovereign  states. 

Business  rests,  as  our  government  does,  on  a  declara- 
tion of  principles  which  are  true  everywhere;  but  busi- 
ness unlike  our  government,  has  applied  them  every- 
where. Modern  states  have  governmentally  limited 
the  activities  of  indi\'idual  sovereignty  within  national 
boundaries,  but  business  has  made  a  world-wide  dem- 
onstration of  this  world-wide  principle;  it  has  shown 
that  men  can  work  together  without  fear  and  with 
entire  equity,  whatever  their  race,  whatever  their 
creed,  whatever  their  allegiance,  and  can,  but  not 
without  peril,  so  work  even  in  times  of  war. 

Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves;  these  are  reactionary 
days.  By  what  may  be  called  a  curious  ata\'istic  im- 
pulse men  are  everywhere  reacting  toward  their  racial 
origins.  The  call  of  the  blood  seems  stronger  than 
national  fealty.  The  doctrine  of  sovereignty  by 
Divine  Right,  or  the  doctrine  that  sovereignty^  dwells 
in  the  state,  is  working  its  own  destruction.     Men 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  133 

intuitively  understand  that  this  doctrine  means  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  force,  the  conquest  of  the  world  by 
whoever  or  whatever  is  finally  the  strongest.  Faced 
with  this  danger  the  call  of  the  blood  becomes  stronger 
than  the  call  of  the  flag.  The  negative  appeal  begins 
to  fail.  Men  recoil  from  the  anarchy  that  exists  in 
international  affairs  and  grasp  at  whatever  seems  to 
promise  safety;  they  return  politically  to  the  faith  of 
their  childhood,  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  just  as  men 
frequently  do  religiously'  when  age  or  disorder  seizes 
their  bodies. 

Disorder  has  governmentally  seized  the  whole  world. 
Nationality  has  reached  the  limit  of  its  cycle;  it  has  in 
twenty-six  months  brought  the  world  enough  woe  to 
damn  its  claims  to  further  consideration.  No  compro- 
mise is  possible.  Sovereignty  by  right  of  the  state  or 
by  Di\'ine  Right  cannot  compromise.  Sovereignty 
through  individual,  inalienable  rights  can  compromise, 
reconstruct,  rearrange.  It  indeed  eliminates  the  neces- 
sity for  compromise.  Under  that  doctrine  each  man 
must  recognize  the  inalienable  rights  of  every  other 
man.  That  there  should  be  as  there  undoubtedly  is 
an  intuitive  reaction,  under  existing  conditions,  toward 
the  doctrine  of  inalienable,  indi\ddual  rights  is  natural 
and  hopeful.  It  represents  recoil  from  wholesale  murder ; 
from  the  hideous  failure  of  the  present  system;  from 
the  irrational  brutality  of  force  from  the  breakdown  of 
the  existing  order.  That  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  has 
broken  down,  that  it  has  led  the  world  to  a  shambles, 
that  it  has  turned  civilization  back  to  chaos  and  wiped 
out  in  two  years  the  material,  moral,  and  spiritual 
achievements  of  many  years,  no  one  can  fairly  deny. 
This  present  reaction  represents  an  instinctive  call  for 


134  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

something  very  near  to  revolution.  Men  have  had 
enough  of  this  irrationahty,  enough  of  murder,  enough 
of  feeding  young  men  to  cannon  and  women  to  The 
Beast.  NationaHty  can  now  give  men  nothing  to  justify 
such  a  price  and  nationality  so  preserved  is  forever 
open  to  the  same  perils.  To  maintain  itself  it  must 
forever  re-cormnit  the  same  crimes. 

The  flag — our  flag — has  always  appealed  to  some- 
thing bigger,  broader,  and  more  rational  than  mere 
nationality,  to  something  finer  than  patriotism:  it  has 
appealed  to  the  soul;  it  has  reflected  a  sunlight  that 
shines  on  no  savagery;  it  has  in  its  rustlings  whispered 
of  man's  longing  for  justice.  It  represents  to-day  the 
noblest  effort  yet  made  to  establish  human  rights;  be- 
cause of  the  sincerity  and  nobility  of  that  effort,  be- 
cause of  the  call  it  has  issued  and  the  haven  it  has 
offered,  the  stars  and  stripes  have  become  not  merely 
the  emblem  of  a  great  democracy  but  the  prophecy  of 
a  w^orld  democracy.  Nations  at  war  are  savages  for 
exactly  the  same  reasons  that  men  were  indi\'idually 
savages  until  they  learned  a  better  way.  Through  the 
establishment  of  orderly  society  men  grudgingly  gave 
up  some  so-called  indi\ddual  freedom,  but  they  gained 
infinitely  thereby,  and  later  discovered  that  they  had 
surrendered  nothing  of  value.  The  subordination  of 
existing  nations  to  the  rule  of  a  higher  law  '^'ill  as 
certainly  limit  war  as  laws  against  duelhng  have  hmited 
murder  by  that  brutal  and  illogical  process.  Sover- 
eignty, as  the  nations  now  assert  it,  rests  on  the  inter- 
national code  duello.  Diplomacy  is  the  hypocritical 
negotiations  between  seconds,  the  measuring  of  dis- 
tances, the  choosing  of  positions  and  of  weapons.  War 
is  the  product  of  the  identical  irrationality  that  in 


The  Declaration  of  1776  and  the  Flag  135 

strict  conformity  with  the  code  snuffed  out  the  hfe  of 
Alexander  Hamilton.  The  verdicts  of  war  are  not 
infrequently  as  monstrous  as  that  verdict  was. 

Beyond  our  frontiers — now  that  our  geographic  limits 
are  fixed  we  are  constantly  in  contact  with  all  consider- 
able nations — the  existing  rules  of  sovereignty  demand 
that  we  adhere  to  this  savage  code.  All  its  rules  are  in 
full  operation.  We  are  as  mad  as  any.  The  seconds 
are  delivering  the  usual  notes;  each  side  is  quibbling 
over  questions  of  honor.  Hating  war,  agonizing  over 
the  peril  that  threatens  all  we  own,  all  we  are,  all  we 
hope  to  be,  we  find  ourselves  struggling  helplessly  with 
the  intricacies  of  a  program  as  irrational  in  its  processes, 
as  bloody  in  its  significance,  as  it  was  in  the  era  of  the 
cave-man  when  indeed  it  was  born. 

Two  years  ago  Secretary  Franklin  K.  Lane  called  the 
flag  "The  mystery  of  the  men  who  do  without  knowing 
why".  All  up  the  weary  distance  from  a  cave  to  a 
palace  men  have  not  fully  known  why.  But  a  Di\dne 
Something  has  driven  them  on.  They  have  followed 
the  flag.  They  have  built  painfully  and  then  repeatedly 
had  to  modify  in  part  what  they  had  built  lest  it  turn 
and  destroy  them.  They  have  had  a  thousand  flags 
and  changed  them  all  because  none  fully  explained  the 
mystery. 

You  love  your  flag  because  you  love  life,  because 
that  flag  in  some  way  expresses  your  ideals  and  your 
dreams.  You  love  your  country  because  it  exalts  life, 
because  it  protects  life  and  liberty  and  when  in  any 
particular  it  fails,  you  are  humiliated  and  ashamed. 

But  your  demand  that  government  protect  your  life 
and  your  liberty  does  not  imply  a  savage  disregard  of 


136  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

other  men's  rights  and  hberties,  and  does  not  call  for 
the  insanity  named  War. 

Your  life  and  your  property  are  safe  and  your  liberty 
secure  only  as  far  as  law  exists  and  is  enforced.  The 
flag  symbolizes  the  day  when  law,  born  of  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Declaration,  shall  supersede  international 
lawlessness. 

I  greet  you  not  as  patriots  but  as  business  men  and 
citizens  and  therefore  as  true  protagonists  of  a  larger 
democracy, — a  democracy  whose  flag  has  not  yet  been 
designed:  a  flag  whose  field  must  be  so  designed  that, 
like  the  field  of  our  national  flag,  it  shall  by  its  expand- 
ing symbolism  register  the  triumphs  of  expanding 
democracy,  until  within  it,  like  a  new  Bow  of  Promise, 
will  ultimately  stand  the  assurance  that  the  principles 
of  the  Declaration  of  1776  have  become  vital  inter- 
nationally as  well  as  nationally  and  that  men  at  last 
are  governmentally  sane. 


NINETEEN  SEVENTEEN  AND  PEACE 


FROM  THE  NYLIC  AGENTS'  BULLETIN,  DEC.  23,  1916 


OR  the  third  successive  year,  Christmas 
finds  the  greater  portion  of  the  Christian 
world — and  much  of  the  non-Christian — 
fighting,  hating,  bleeding  and  dying.  The 
toll  in  casualties  and  in  human  lives  that 
has  been  paid  to  ignorance,  ambition,  covetousness, 
misunderstanding  and  fear  now  approximates  in  number 
the  entire  population  of  the  Northern  States  at  the 
time  of  our  Civil  War,  and  in  treasure  it  exceeds  the 
total  wealth  of  those  States  at  that  time  by  400  S^. 
More  men  are  under  arms  in  Europe  now  than  the 
entire  population  of  these  United  States  fifty  years  ago. 
Great  Britain  alone  has  spent  more  money  since 
August  1,  1914,  than  the  entire  estimated  wealth  of  this 
country  in  1860.  All  the  belligerents  have  relatively 
done  as  much.  If  the  war  lasts  on  the  present  scale 
through  1917,  the  States  of  Europe  will  have  increased 
national  debts  alone  by  a  sum  equal  to  the  entire  wealth 
of  this  country  in  1900. 

These  are  supreme  sacrifices  and  should  be  for  a 
supreme  issue.  Governments  cannot  finally  justify  such 
struggles  and  sacrifices  by  pleading  misunderstandings. 
That  plea  would  indicate  that  statesmen,  after  all,  are 
not  rational;  and  they  are  not  rational — they  are  now 
mad  with  fear  or  ambition  or  both.     Honest,  gentle, 

10  137 


138  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

kindly — the  people  have  been  caught  in  the  intricacies 
and  limitations  of  a  social  and  governmental  plan  which 
has  driven  them  mad  also.  If  this  war  shall  forever 
banish  that  madness  it  may  be  worth  all  it  costs. 

When  we  get  to  the  hearts  of  men  we  find  no  such 
differences  as  this  war  indicates.  Men  differ  in  educa- 
tion, in  self-respect,  in  ideals;  their  skins  are  not 
all  of  the  same  color  and  they  do  not  all  respond  to  the 
same  moral  standards;  but  take  them  when  acting 
normally,  away  from  the  shadow  of  fear,  away  from 
the  pressure  of  some  so-called  necessity,  and  they  are 
much  alike  the  world  over.  Shylock,  speaking  for  the 
Jew,  expressed  the  voice  of  every  section  of  humanity 
when  he  said — 

"Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes?  Hath  not  a  Jew  hands, 
organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections,  passions?  Fed 
with  the  same  food,  hurt  with  the  same  weapons,  sub- 
ject to  the  same  diseases,  healed  by  the  same  means, 
warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer, 
as  a  Christian?  If  you  prick  us,  do  we  not  bleed? 
If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh?  If  you  poison  us, 
do  we  not  die?" 

And  on  the  other  hand,  Shylock,  speaking  for  insti- 
tutionalism,  for  ignorance  and  fear,  expresses  the  pre- 
judices of  men  when  he  says — 

"I  hate  him  for  he  is  a  Christian." 

This  line  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  differences  that  so 
bitterly  divide  men.  There  are  others — many  others. 
But  at  bottom  all  these  differences  are  alike;  all  hark 
back  to  savagery,  all  teach  men  that  they  must  hate 
because  others  hate  them,  that  they  must  plot  against 
others  because  others  plot  to  take  away  their  hves, 
their  liberties  and  their  property. 


Nineteen  Seventeen  and  Peace  139 

These  obsessions  grow  into  institutions,  into  States 
which  hmit  men's  \ision,  emphasize  their  differences, 
minimize  their  similarities,  cultivate  their  hates — until 
finally  the  forces  of  ignorance  and  fear  get  beyond 
control  and  men  rush  out  with  less  reason  than  the 
beasts  of  the  field  and  commit  such  atrocities  as  now 
shame  the  earth. 

How  many  of  the  great  institutions  of  the  world  are 
as  broad  as  the  similarities  and  common  interests  of 
men?  How  many  make  an  appeal  that  is  broader  than 
race  or  color  or  religion  or  geographic  limitations? 

Show  me  one — except  Life  Insurance — that  doesn't 
stop  at  some  frontier,  at  some  interpretation  of  revela- 
tion and  say — 

"Everything  beyond  this  is  dangerous  and  wicked 
and  we  must  stand  against  it  to  the  death." 

Show  me  one! 

I  do  not  say  that  boastingly,  but  sadly.  I  am  proud, 
as  you  are,  that  there  is  no  blood  on  the  hands  of  Life 
Insurance;  that  in  a  world  at  war  it  has  preached  peace; 
that  in  days  of  monstrous  cruelty  and  hatred  it  has 
worked  to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  humanity  whether 
Jew  or  Gentile,  Christian  or  Pagan.  It  has  gone  on 
demonstrating  that  all  men  can  work  together  even  when 
they  are  so  controlled  by  fear  that  they  kill  each  other. 

Life  Insurance  does  not  hold  that  conception  of 
Deity  which  puts  Him  into  the  fighting  ranks  of  either 
side  in  this  or  any  war.  It  holds  to  the  conception 
which  made  the  Heavenly  Host  chant  to  the  shepherds 
while  they  watched  their  flocks  by  night — 

"On  Earth  Peace;  Good  Will  Toward  Men." 

May  1917  bring  the  world  Peace — Peace  born  of  the 
knowledge  that  humanity  is  greater  than  any  state, 
that  human  life  is  the  supreme,  the  only  value. 


THE  EVIL  THAT  MEN  DO  LIVES 
AFTER  THEM" 


AN  AFTER  DINNER  RESPONSE 

BEFORE  THE  CANADIAN  SOCIETY,  HOTEL  BILTMORE,  NEW  YORK, 

JANUARY  27.  1917 


HE  existing  di\nsion  in  what  is  generally 
called  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  was  brought 
about  by  the  stupidity  of  certain  English 
Ministers  of  State  and  the  folly  of  an  English 
King  who  was  not  mentally  responsible. 
"The  evil  that  men  do"  truly  "lives  after  them". 
No  American  citizen  has  any  regret  for  any  specific 
thing  done  by  the  Fathers  from  the  Boston  Tea  Party 
to  Yorktown.  On  the  contrary,  that  period  is  not  only 
our  heroic  age  and  the  reservoir  from  which  we  draw 
unending  inspiration,  but  it  is  the  inspiration  of  men 
all  over  the  world  who  resist  tyrants  and  are  ready  to 
make  the  supreme  sacrifice  for  human  rights. 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  1917  almost  a  century 
and  a  half  after  these  e\'il  forces  brought  on  the  issue 
which  created  the  schism  there  is  room  for  regrets  and 
no  true  lover  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  is  ashamed  or 
afraid  to  express  those  regrets. 

Successful  revolutions  seldom  need  justification. 
Usually  the  power  against  which  revolution  has  struck 
justified  later  on  the  e\'il  qualities  which  the  revolu- 
tionists charged.    Seldom  has  the  offending  power,  the 

140 


"The  Eml  That  Men  Do  Lives  After  Them''     141 

Mother  country,  reformed  itself,  adopted  in  large 
measure  the  ideals  of  the  rebels  and  even  surpassed 
them  in  the  general  application  of  those  ideals  to  itself 
and  to  large  sections  of  humanity. 

So  completely  did  Great  Britain  repudiate  the 
leadership  which  drove  the  colonies  into  revolt,  so 
really  democratic  did  she  become  that  since  the  war 
of  1812  the  two  great  powers  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  have  been  not  enemies  but  rivals  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  human  hberty;  one  gradually  absorbing 
a  vast  continent  through  the  erection  of  free  common- 
wealths peopled  by  free  men  who  came  freely  from  all 
over  the  world;  the  other  making  her  kingdom  the 
sea  and  carrying  to  all  corners  of  her  waterbound 
Empire  the  ideals  of  human  rights  which  earlier  her 
King  and  jMinisters  so  wickedly  denied  our  Fathers. 
Together  the  two  to-day  surpass  all  the  other  great 
powers  of  the  earth  combined  in  population,  in  trade, 
in  territory,  in  wealth.  Technically  they  are  divided, 
but  in  their  aspirations,  in  their  institutions,  in  their 
language,  in  their  literature,  in  their  traditions,  in  their 
standards  of  living,  in  short  in  all  the  conditions  which 
justify  free  government  and  in  the  ideals  which  give 
them  vitality,  they  are  substantially  one.  In  their 
continued  integrity  and  in  their  co-operation  he  the 
hopes  of  democracy.  If  this  Company  representing 
as  it  does  all  the  men  who  fought  at  Bunker  Hill  and 
all  the  men  who  fought  at  Quebec  and  all  the  men  who 
fought  at  Plattsburg  should,  as  I  venture  now  to  do, 
express  the  fervent  hope  that  at  no  distant  date  these 
great  kindred  powers  shall  enter  into  some  federated 
relation  which  will  make  any  serious  difference  between 
them  hereafter  as  impossible  as  serious  differences  now 


142  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

are  between  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  we  shall 
on  neither  side  be  unpatriotic.  That  the  United  States 
and  Canada  in  spite  of  some  serious  misunderstandings 
in  the  past,  in  spite  of  interests  and  ambitions  that 
have  clashed,  should  now  find  themselves  so  nearly 
one  in  purpose  and  sympathy  is  not  strange.  They  are 
intimately  related  in  their  origin,  history  and  develop- 
ment. Canada  even  after  it  became  British  extended 
as  far  south  as  the  Ohio  River.  Before  Canada  became 
finally  British — which  was  only  sixteen  years  prior 
to  our  Declaration  of  Independence — she  had  been 
almost  continually  French,  and  there  are  few  pages  of 
history  so  crammed  with  romance  as  those  which  im- 
perfectly record  the  heroic  labors  of  the  French  in  the 
wars  between  France  and  Great  Britain  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  continent.  The  colonies  to  the  south 
had  a  part  in  the  struggle  which  did  not  end  until  1760. 
Again  in  their  fight  for  independence  the  Colonies  were 
by  no  means  unanimous.  The  Tories  who  were  loyal 
to  the  crown  made  up  an  appreciable  per  cent,  of  the 
population  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies.  Between  them 
and  the  followers  of  Washington  and  Hamilton  there 
was  feud-war  of  the  cruelest  kind.  The  patriots  con- 
fiscated the  property  of  the  Tories  and  hunted  them 
down  with  the  cruelty  that  such  conditions  have 
historically  always  developed.  Forty  thousand  Tory 
inhabitants  of  the  Colonies  fled  to  Canada — largely 
to  Nova  Scotia.  Naturally  as  they  fled  from  what 
they  considered  gross  injustice  and  cruelty  they 
cherished  bitter  animosities  against  their  neighbors. 

As  a  result  of  this  and  other  migrations  large  numbers 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Canada  to-day,  including  some 
holding  high  positions  in  the  government,   are  fully 


''The  Eml  that  Men  Do  Lives  After  Them"      143 

eligible  to  membership  in  the  New  England  Society 
of  New  York.  In  the  lapse  of  time  the  descendants 
of  these  exiled  Loyalists  returned  to  this  country  and 
the  genealogy  of  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
membership  of  this  Society  will  lead  from  here  back 
to  Canada  and  again  return  in  the  seventies  and 
eighties  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  Cape  Cod  and 
the  lower  reaches  of  the  Hudson  River.  Thousands 
of  Canadians  fought  on  the  Union  side  in  our  great 
Civil  War.  Later  on  many  other  thousands  migrated 
to  this  country  and  became  American  Citizens. 

In  very  recent  times  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
best  citizenship  of  our  Middle  West,  themselves  remote 
descendants  of  the  pioneers  of  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  have  gone  into  the  Canadian  Northwest, 
become  citizens  of  Canada,  and  are  to-night,  with 
thousands  of  others  who  are  still  American  citizens, 
defending  the  allied  lines  in  Flanders. 

Time  has  softened  animosities  and  re-awakened 
heroic  memories.  The  call  of  the  blood  has  finally 
triumphed.  A  frontier  cuts  the  lines  of  influence  that 
radiate  north  and  west  from  Plymouth  Rock,  and 
south  and  west  from  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  but  so 
powerful  is  the  sense  of  a  common  purpose  that  along 
that  frontier  for  over  3,000  miles  there  is  neither  gun 
nor  battleship,  and  if  that  condition  ever  changes  the 
race  to  which  we  belong  will  somewhere  have  been 
betrayed. 

If  therefore  the  descendants  of  both  sides,  in  the 
issues  raised  in  1775,  should  now  clasp  hands,  not 
merely  because  they  have  learned  to  respect  each 
other,  but  because  they  have  mutually  come  to  re- 
cognize a  common  purpose  from  the  beginning  and  to 


144  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

honor  a  common  ancestry, — who  shall  say  that  they 
are  other  than  true  Anglo-Saxons  and  true  patriots? 

Our  forebears  were  right  because  they  resisted  tyrants ; 
that  resistance  in  large  measure  brought  Canada  her 
freedom ;  it  also  helped  to  give  Englishmen  their  democ- 
racy. Whether  the  Tories  were  loyal  to  the  crown 
because  they  had  a  clearer  \'ision  than  the  other 
Colonists,  because  they  knew  that  the  heart  of  Great 
Britain  was  sound  and  that  hberty  still  lived  there 
and  would  triumph,  I  don't  know.  In  passing  I  am 
obliged  to  say  I  doubt  it ;  but  in  any  event  driven  in  the 
name  of  liberty  out  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  they  have 
north  of  us  helped  to  erect  a  new  nation  as  devoted  to 
the  principles  of  1776  as  we  are;  they  have  produced  a 
people  as  brave,  as  generous,  as  capable,  as  true  to 
Anglo-Saxon  ideals  as  any  branch  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  They  command  our  unstinted  admiration  be- 
cause they  and  the  men  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
and  South  Africa  have  heard  the  call  that  John  But- 
trick  and  his  men  heard  at  Lexington  Conmion,  and 
are  answering  it  as  superbly. 

None  of  these  Dominion  men  was  obhged  to  enter 
this  war.  Some  very  good  reasons  could  have  been 
advanced  why  they  should  not.  There  was  one  very 
great  reason.  None  of  these  young  nations  had  any 
voice  in  Great  Britain's  Foreign  Office.  They  were  not 
consulted  when  the  Mother  country  made  her  great 
decision  in  1914.  They  had  their  own  governments 
and  between  them  and  England  the  connection  was 
small  and  useful  and  apparently  void  of  offense  to 
free  men.  Canada  for  example  watched  with  much 
of  the  curiosity  of  a  bystander  the  diplomatic  issues 
now  and  then  raised  in  Europe,  such  as — the  Fashoda 


"The  Evil  that  Men  Do  Lives  After  Them''      145 

incident,  the  crises  in  Morocco  and  the  Conference  at 
Algeciras.  I  doubt  if  even  the  Boer  War,  in  which 
Canada  unhesitatingly  took  part,  brought  home  to 
Canadians  their  true  status  or  lack  of  status  in  the 
Empire.  But  now  Canada  understands  that  while 
with  her  fellow  members  of  the  Empire  she  is  giving 
her  sons  and  her  money  as  heroically  as  any  people 
ever  did,  she  is  something  less  than  a  nation.  Never- 
theless with  a  generosity  that  is  quixotic  she  is  giving 
her  all  and  is  willing  to  wait  for  exact  justice  from  the 
great  Mother,  in  the  post-bellum  readjustments. 

As  an  Anglo-Saxon  nothing  is  clearer  to  me  than  this : 
The  great  questions  of  peace  and  war  will  never  again 
be  settled  for  Canada  and  her  sister  free  Dominions  by 
a  Parliament  which  represents  the  British  Isles  only. 
The  new  head  of  the  British  government,  David  Lloyd 
George,  has  already  said  that  new  and  closer  relations 
with  the  Dominion  governments  will  follow  the  coming 
of  peace.  He  doubtless  understands,  as  the  world 
generally  does,  that  while  Canada  believes  she  is 
fighting  for  human  liberty,  she  knows  that  she  is 
fighting  for  her  rightful  place  in  the  Empire. 

Whether  it  will  be  possible  to  form  a  League  of 
Nations  after  this  war  through  which  the  future  peace 
of  the  world  can  be  assured  is  now  in  the  thoughts  of 
every  serious-minded  man.  Within  recent  days  the 
idea  has  been  discussed  by  the  men  who  lead  the 
governments  of  all  the  great  Powers,  and  by  none  has 
it  been  more  nobly  stated  than  by  our  own  President. 
The  task  will  be  colossal.  The  forces  that  will  have  to 
be  controlled  are  rooted  deep  in  religious  bigotry,  in 
racial  hatreds,  in  profound  ignorance,  in  instinctive 
fears.     The  storm  center  of  the  world  is  located  not 


146  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

far  from  the  spot  where  the  Aryan  race  had  its  birth 
where  man  himself  is  supposed  first  to  have  appeared. 
But  as  we  move  to  the  West  the  differences  that  sprang 
out  of  these  ancient  problems,  their  hates,  their  fears, 
their  real  kings  and  their  sham  kings  have  less  and  less 
significance,  until  we  finally  emerge  into  the  blessed  light 
of  the  sun  of  liberty  that  shines  on  all  the  land  from 
the  Rio  Grande  to  the  North  Pole. 

But  whether  or  not  such  a  league  is  now  possible 
there  is  a  League — no,  not  a  League,  a  Federation — 
quite  possible  of  formation  (if  Anglo-Saxon  men  have 
not  lost  the  power  of  generalization  and  deduction) 
which  would  go  far  toward  achieving  the  end  sought, 
if  indeed  it  would  not  ultimately  and  more  surely 
achieve  it;  and  that  is  a  Federation  of  all  the  English 
speaking  nations  of  the  world.  Never  since  govern- 
ments began  has  there  been  an  Empire  to  compare  with 
the  countries  now  controlled  by  Anglo-Saxon  ideals. 
Such  animosities  as  were  born  a  hundred  and  forty 
years  ago  have  substantially  died  out  during  the 
century  of  peace  that  has  existed  between  the  two 
great  units.  Measured  westward  from  the  meridian 
of  Greenwich,  this  Empire  covers  three-quarters  of 
the  distance  round  the  earth  and  reaches,  sweeping 
northeast  to  southwest,  from  pole  to  pole.  It  encircles 
the  two  great  oceans  of  the  world,  includes  almost 
solidly  two  continents  and  has  set  the  light  of  its  liberty 
burning  steadily  around  the  globe.  It  is  substantially 
one  in  speech,  in  law,  in  literature,  in  forms  of  govern- 
ment. Its  people  love  liberty  and  are  wilUng  at  all 
times  to  fight  for  it.  It  is  still  di\dded  because  of  the 
work  of  ministers  whose  very  names  Great  Britain 
would  like  to  forget,  and  of  a  King  who  is  remembered 


''The  Evil  that  Men  Do  Lives  After  Them"      147 

chiefly  because  he  is  an  example  of  what  an  EngUsh 
King  ought  not  to  be.    Their  evil  deeds  survive. 

But  if  Anglo-Saxons  have  always  been  brave  enough 
to  revolt  and  fight  for  their  rights,  can  it  be  that  they 
are  not  big  enough  when  the  hour  strikes  to  unite  for 
the  same  purpose?  Is  their  pride  greater  than  their 
convictions?  Was  their  constructive  capacity  ex- 
hausted with  the  great  Union  created  in  1789? 

The  force  that  stands  to-day  against  a  Federation  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world  is  the  same  false  pride  that 
controlled  George  Clinton  when  he  fought  Alexander 
Hamilton  all  through  the  Summer  of  1788  and  so 
nearly  kept  this  State  out  of  the  Union.  By  the 
narrowest  of  margins  Hamilton  won;  but  he  won 
because  his  logic  had  in  it  the  force  of  Thor's  hammer, 
because  his  speech  had  in  it  a  Divine  eloquence. 

In  this  struggle  between  the  sovereignties  of  Europe 
there  is  a  logic  more  compelling  than  Hamilton's; 
it  beats  upon  us  with  the  power  of  thunderbolts.  It 
says  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  world — 

"Federate!  Federate  and  neutrahze  the  evil  wrought 
by  King  George  III  and  his  ministers.  Federate 
because  you  are  all  democratic  and  frontiers  are  the 
enemy  of  democracy.  Federate  because  the  dogma  of 
sovereignty  must  never  again  be  permitted  to  crucify 
humanity.    Federate  because  that  way  hes  peace." 

Let  the  sweUing  millions  of  our  common  race  pray 
for  a  greater  Washington  and  a  greater  Hamilton  and 
a  greater  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham,  and  when  they  re- 
appear, as  they  must  if  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  is  to 
survive,  let  us  put  aside  our  false  pride  and  our  fears 
and  follow  them. 


LIFE  INSURANCE  AS  A  VOCATION 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE 

STUDENTS  OF  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  WILLIAMSTOWN,  MASS., 

FEBRUARY  15,  1917 


COULD  as  well  have  said  ''Life  Insurance 
as  a  Profession".  Vocationally  defined  ''Life 
insurance  is  the  application  of  special  know- 
ledge to  the  benefit  of  others  rather  than  to 
one's  self".  I  know  no  better  definition 
than  that  of  the  qualities  which  lift  any  daily  effort 
out  of  the  hum-drum  of  bread  and  butter  and  entitle 
them  to  be  rated  as  professional. 

The  man  whose  academic  years  have  been  spent 
in  this  atmosphere  must  seek  in  selecting  his  life  work 
something  which  reasonably  meets  the  current  demands 
of  living  and  at  the  same  time  appeals  to  his  imagina-*. 
tion. 

No  vocation  can  appeal  to  the  well-balanced  mind 
and  to  the  imagination  which  does  not  in  some  fashion 
respond  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  times.  These 
are  strange  times.  You  who  leave  college  this  year 
will  begin  work  in  a  very  strange  world. 

The  world  of  1917  is  not  the  world  of  1914  nor  the 
world  of  any  previous  epoch.  The  changes  from  August 
1,  1914,  to  a  stabilized  world,  following  this  war,  may, 
indeed  probably  will,  be  as  tremendous  as  those  which 
separate  the  fossils  of  Lake  Florissant,  Colorado,  and 

148 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  149 

the  life  of  the  Rocky  JMountains  of  to-day — spanning 
a  period  of  countless  years. 

Between  1914  and  1917  something  prodigious  hap- 
pened. Hostile  forces  developed  through  centuries  of 
struggle  came  into  conflict.  Institutionalism  with  its 
dogmatic  affirmations  clashed  with  institutionalism. 
Differing  theories  of  government  and  of  human  rights 
came  to  grips.  In  society  and  government  prodigious 
forces  stirred  and  changed  the  social  geography  of 
the  world,  sinking  the  Atlantis  of  1914  and  hfting  out 
of  the  ooze  a  new  continent.  To  state  the  conditions 
a  little  more  simply  let  us  change  the  analogy: 

Mary  Shelley  made  her  hero  Frankenstein  construct 
the  physical  body  of  a  man  in  his  laboratory  hoping 
that  like  Prometheus  he  could  bring  to  it  the  divine 
spark  of  life  and  that  when  life  came  his  creation, 
being  free  of  mortal  ills,  would  be  immortal.  Instead, 
with  life,  Frankenstein's  creature  became  a  monster 
which  relentlessl}^  pursued  and  destroyed  its  creator. 

The  peoples  of  the  world  in  1914  had  created  a 
wonderful  civilization  based  on  separate,  substantially 
unrelated  units  called  nations,  each  asserting  unlimited 
and  unconditioned  sovereignty  over  its  own  territory 
and  people  and  a  not  too  clearly  defined  authority  over 
its  people  and  their  property  when  within  other  sover- 
eignties. The  nations  in  turn,  like  Frankenstein,  tried 
to  create  another  state  out  of  the  necessary  impact 
between  governmentally  unrelated  units.  They  put 
the  parts  together  as  Frankenstein  did  and  hoped  as 
he  did  that  in  some  way  they  might  bring  down  from 
Heaven  the  vital  spark  of  peace.  They  called  the 
product  International  Law;  but  it  was  no  more  Law 
than  Frankenstein's  creation  was  a  man.     Then  sud- 


150  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

denly,  on  August  1,  1914,  this  law  that  was  not  law  but 
potential  anarchy  asserted  itself  and  became  real 
anarchy,  became  a  monster  which,  like  Frankenstein's 
creation,  is  relentlessly  destroying  its  creator.  When 
Frankenstein  perished  his  monstrous  creation  passed 
away.  When  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty 
passes,  when  that  Frankenstein  is  succeeded  by  the 
doctrine  that  human  life  is  the  only  real  value  in  the 
world,  the  monster  which  it  created,  called  Inter- 
national Law,  will  pass  away  also. 

Whether  you  would  have  it  so  or  not  you  are  already 
literally  projected  into  the  struggle  which  centres 
around  this  problem.  The  existing  struggle  will  never 
end — just  as  no  man  can  place  its  beginning — but  it 
will  in  the  span  of  your  lives  bring  in  very  definite  re- 
sults. You  will — or  you  may — work  in  an  inspiring 
age.  You  will  be  on  the  frontiers  of  human  hopes,  or 
at  least  you  can  be.  Whether  you  are  or  not,  whether 
you  do  a  strong  man's  part  or  not,  will  to  no  small 
extent  depend  on  the  vision  that  lies  in  your  vocation. 
If  your  vocation  has  vision  you  will  develop  vision. 
If  your  profession  is  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  you  will  understand  its  problems.  It  is  still 
quite  possible  for  men,  yes  for  educated  men,  to  hve 
like  swine.  It  will  be  possible  for  you  to  go  through 
life  successful  and  materially  rich  without  knowing  or 
caring  what  the  condition  of  this  struggle  is  or  what  it 
portends. 

The  world  is  already  reacting  to  the  challenge  which 
these  conditions  have  issued.  Men  were  never  so 
great  and  never  so  small  as  they  are  to-day;  never  so 
kind  and  never  so  cruel;  never  so  generous  and  never 
so  mean;  never  so  capable  and  never  so  incapable; 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  151 

never  so  rational  and  never  so  mad.  The  average  day 
laborer  has  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  world  day  by  day 
than  the  College  President  of  a  century  ago  had.  The 
average  man  has  a  clearer  knowledge  of  the  forces  that 
lie  back  of  current  international  questions  than  most 
of  the  statesmen  had  who  struggled  with  the  problems 
of  statecraft  in  1817.  Knowledge  has  marvelously 
expanded  and  the  physical  world  has  marvelously 
shrunk.  All  this  makes  it  desirable  that  the  college  man 
should  question  the  old  professions  and  study  the  new 
ones  before  making  his  choice. 

What  \\ill  be  found  in  the  bottom  of  the  crucible  of 
European  ci\dlization  when  the  fierce  flame  of  battle 
has  died  away?  Will  it  be  sanity  or  more  madness? 
Will  it  be  nationality  or  humanity,  a  world-citizenship 
or  more  so-called  patriotism?  In  completeness  pro- 
bably neither.  But  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe 
that  while  a  world-democracy  is  not  immediately 
attainable,  out  of  this  ruin  and  madness  the  people 
will  emerge  with  a  new  realization  of  their  power,  with 
a  broader  comprehension  of  their  interdependence,  with 
a  fuller  understanding  of  the  fact  that  in  a  world  as 
small  as  this  world  now  is,  nationality  asserting  the 
doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty,  is  an  anach- 
ronism, whether  it  bases  its  several  claims  to  power  on 
Divine  Right  or  on  the  suffrage  of  a  people  theoretically 
free.  Republics  asserting  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned 
sovereignty  are  about  as  grave  a  menace  to  the  peace 
of  the  world  as  autocracies.  The  reform  that  will 
remove  this  menace  must  be  born  of  the  people,  of  a 
consciousness  that  the  thing  of  supreme  value  is  human 
life.  Great  reforms  in  society  are  no  longer  imposed 
from  without.    Nations  are  no  longer  baptized  by  force. 


152  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

It  is  still  bitterly  true  that  in  the  incidents  of  colossal 
world  struggles  nations  may  be  raped  and  the  final 
answer  to  the  questions  which  spring  out  of  inter- 
national lawlessness  is  still  sheer  force.  But  dreadful 
as  these  facts  are  we  must  believe  that  they  are  fugitive 
and  do  little  more  than  touch  the  deep  currents  of  the 
people's  thinking.  Governments  may  have  reacted  to 
medievalism  but  the  people  have  not.  Religious  re- 
forms and  civic  reforms  may  and  sometimes  do  reach 
sudden  and  dramatic  climaxes  but  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  the  great  reform  finally  comes  because  the  idea 
has  long  been  gestating  in  the  lives  and  work  of  the 
people. 

Nothing  is  therefore  so  important  as  what  the  in- 
dividual units  of  a  nation  do  and  think  day  by  day. 
Nothing  will  be  so  important  to  you  as  what  you  do 
and  think  day  by  da\'.  If  your  chosen  work  comes 
finally  to  have  no  significance  except  a  hving  or  material 
success  be  sure  you  have  chosen  unwisely,  and  you  are 
in  a  fair  way  to  lose  your  own  soul. 

I  do  not  forget  that  I  am  speaking  to  educated  men, 
to  men  who  have  been  fortunate.  The  mass  of  men 
are  not  equally  fortunate.  Nevertheless  we  are  all, 
educated  and  half-educated,  in  one  boat  together  and 
a  vocation  or  profession  which  leads  educated  men  to 
use  their  confessed  advantage  for  selfish  purposes 
merely,  which  tends  to  put  them  in  a  class  apart, 
which  teaches  them  to  forget  that  education  is  even 
more  an  obhgation  than  an  asset,  is  not  the  soundest 
of  vocations  and  cannot  lead  to  the  highest  usefulness. 

The  attainment  of  success,  material  success,  money, 
will  necessarily  be  the  immediate  purpose  of  most  of 
you.    In  these  days  competition  is  keen  and  your  im- 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  153 

mediate  goal  will  not  be  instantly  or  easily  reached. 
The  danger  lies  in  this:  Under  the  stress  of  competition 
you  may  go  so  deeply  into  your  vocation  or  profession 
that  you  will  be  strongly  bound  by  its  hmitations; 
that  indeed  is  likely.  Later  in  life,  these  limitations 
may  narrow  your  outlook  and  deaden  your  sym- 
pathies. You  may  be  rated  by  men  as  a  distinct  success 
at  forty  and  at  sixty-five  know  in  your  own  soul  that 
you  have  been  a  failure. 

Without  analyzing  other  professions,  without  point- 
ing out  their  limitations,  I  in\ite  your  attention  to  Life 
Insurance  as  a  Profession,  as  a  vocation,  as  a  career, 
because  in  its  very  fundamentals  it  is  truly  democratic, 
because  the  matter  of  its  business  is  human  life — the 
only  value  in  the  world — the  thing  that  gives  all  other 
things  value,  because  it  knows  no  creeds  or  frontiers, 
because  it  knows  no  hates  or  fears,  and  because  it  is 
at  the  same  time  so  intimately  related  to  the  ordinary 
professions  and  vocations  that  in  its  ser^'ice  you  may 
be  a  great  lawyer,  a  great  physician,  a  great  financier, 
a  great  scientist,  a  great  salesman,  a  great  executive, 
a  great  sociologist.  Nothing  human  is  foreign  to  it. 
But,  more  than  that,  in  life  insurance  j'ou  cannot  be 
merely  a  great  lawyer  or  a  great  financier  or  a  great 
salesman  or  a  great  executive;  you  can  be  that,  but  if 
you  are  you  must  at  the  same  time  be  something  more. 
All  these  professions  and  vocations  are  included  in  the 
acti\'ities  of  life  insurance,  but  each,  in  that  service, 
definitely  and  scientifically  goes  on  to  a  higher  purpose 
which  is  the  solidarity  of  human  life,  the  co-ordination 
of  its  units,  which  acting  separately  are  helpless  even 
hostile,  but  acting  co-operatively  come  to  possess  a 
power  like  that  of  the  tiny  wires  in  the  cables  of  a  great 


154  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

bridge — able  to  support  the  orderly  traffic  of  a  nation. 
This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  Life  Insurance, 
itself  a  science,  leads  directly  to  the  greatest  of  all 
the  sciences — the  science  of  society. 

And  what  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  society 
now?  Essential  savagery!  As  a  part  of  the  solar  system 
this  earth  is  a  unit  and  a  relatively  small  unit,  but 
governmentally  and  sociologically  its  conditions  suggest 
the  chaos  that  would  follow  if  between  the  planets  from 
Neptune  to  Mercury  the  centrifugal  force  of  matter 
suddenly  ceased  to  operate.  The  eight  planets  sepa- 
rated by  almost  infinite  distance  and  held  apart  by  the 
unchanging  laws  of  matter  are  not  more  strange  to 
each  other  than  the  eight  great  powers  have  been, 
standing  rigidly  on  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned 
sovereignty  and  until  recently  separated  by  barriers 
which  to  the  spread  of  human  understanding  and 
sympathy  were  a  hindrance  comparable  with  the  ether 
in  inter-planetary  understanding.  Into  the  shining 
infinites  of  the  ether  the  human  voice  is  beginning  to 
penetrate.  No  voice  of  reason  has  ever  been  able  to 
penetrate  the  blind  walls  of  sovereignty.  Within  fifty 
years  science,  business  and  the  natural  impulses  of  the 
people  have  delivered  some  sturdy  blows  against  these 
barriers  and  have  almost  seemed  to  make  breaches  in 
them;  but  sovereignty  as  such  has  heard  nothing,  seen 
nothing,  learned  nothing.  Through  increasing  inter- 
course amongst  the  people  centripetal  forces  had  in 
1914  so  driven  the  nations  together  that  either  the 
citizen  or  the  patriot  had  to  yield.  As  usual  the  patriot 
won  and  the  eight  separate  civic  worlds  scattered  over 
the  face  of  this  particular  planet  have  now  fallen 
together  with  a  crash  as  clearly  epoch-making  as  the 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  155 

catastrophe  would  be  if  Neptune  and  Uranus  fell 
against  Jupiter,  crashed  against  Saturn,  and  then 
gathered  up  the  Earth,  Venus,  Mars  and  Mercury  in 
their  flight  into  the  Sun.  The  doctrine  of  sovereignty 
was  as  certain  to  bring  the  eight  great  civic  units  of 
the  world  into  fearful  colUsion  when  science  eliminated 
time  and  distance,  as  the  centripetal  force  of  matter 
would  be  certain  to  smash  up  the  universe  if  the  cen- 
trifugal force  of  matter  suddenly  ceased  to  function. 
Exactly  that  is  happening  now.  The  chaos,  the  form- 
lessness, the  darkness  which  rested  on  the  deep,  were 
no  more  vi\'id  to  the  people  who  produced  the  Book  of 
Genesis  than  they  are  to  us  to-day  on  the  Eastern 
Atlantic  and  the  North  Sea.  The  creative  fiat  that 
shall  sound  over  the  face  of  these  waters  and  say  "Let 
there  be  Light,"  must  be  the  voice  of  the  people, 
speaking  as  the  people,  and  not  the  voice  of  either 
autocratic  or  democratic  sovereignty;  it  must  be  the 
voice  of  real  democracy,  a  democracy  which  within  the 
realms  of  its  own  professions  at  least  shall  have  no 
sovereign  frontiers. 

Such  is  the  condition  of  society  and  such  are  its 
problems.  No  more  terrible,  no  more  appealing,  no 
more  inspiring  period  of  history  has  yet  been  recorded. 

Our  great  problem  is  the  democratization  of  the 
world  and  that  can  never  be  achieved  until  the  existing 
theories  of  sovereignty  are  abandoned.  Democracy  is 
now  a  house  divided  against  itself.  Its  principles  are 
in  theory  as  broad  as  humanity.  We  said  so  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence — asserting  that  all  men 
are  created  equal  and  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights.  Between  States  professing 
these  principles  there  should  never  be  war,  there  could 


156  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

never  be  war  if  these  principles  were  lived  up  to. 
There  is  justification  perhaps  for  war  between  demo- 
cratic and  non-democratic  peoples.  They  do  not 
speak  the  same  political  language  and  a  democracy 
has  an  unquestioned  right  to  defend  itself.  But  all 
democratic  states  speak  the  same  political  language, 
they  profess  the  same  principles,  they  cherish  the  same 
ideals,  the  sources  of  their  sovereignty  are  the  same. 
In  order  to  create  a  ci\dc  organization  they  must  have 
nominal  frontiers,  but  their  principles  as  between  democ- 
racies should  not  be  abandoned  at  those  frontiers. 
The  model  for  the  democracy  of  the  world  is  our 
Federal  Government.  The  original  states  in  1776  had 
frontiers  in  the  sovereign  sense,  but  those  frontiers 
had  to  be  given  up — in  that  sense — in  order  to  make 
the  federated  states  really  democratic.  They  gave  up 
nothing  but  false  pride  when  they  followed  the  De- 
claration of  1776  and  formed  the  Union.  Each  Colony 
entering  the  Federal  Union  preserved  its  identity  and 
instead  of  losing  authority  took  on  a  vastly  increased 
power.  The  next  State  that  enters  this  Union  will 
surrender  nothing  of  value;  on  the  contrary  it  will 
preserve  its  identity  and  acquire  a  voice  in  the  govern- 
ment of  forty-eight  other  States.  It  will  surrender 
only  the  sovereign  right  to  resort  to  savagery  in  future 
relations  with  its  neighbors. 

Until  the  Democratic  States  of  the  world  form  such 
a  Federation,  Democracy — now  a  house  di\'ided  against 
itself — will  be  untrue  to  its  own  professions,  will  always 
be  in  danger  and  likely  to  be  as  blood  guilty  through 
war  as  other  states  which  do  not  profess  its  faith. 

Before  pointing  out  how  wonderfully,  almost  singu- 
larly. Life  Insurance  as  a  sociological  force  forwards 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  157 

the  solution  of  that  great  problem,  let  us  consider  its 
practical  power. 

In  its  practical  and  material  relations  Life  Insurance 
introduces  you  to  a  world  which  represents  one  of  the 
largest  single  accumulations  of  value  earned,  saved, 
set  aside  for  a  constructive  purpose  and  expressed  in 
terms  of  money  and  securities  ever  known  to  organized 
society. 

A  few  statistics  will  be  informing: 

On  January  30,  1916,  the  total  de- 
posits in  the  Sa\dngs  Banks  of  the 
United  States,  representing  10,- 
686,000  depositors,  was S4,997,000,000 

The  total  deposits  of  the  Trust  Com- 
panies on  the  same  date  was 6,247,000,000 

The  total  time  and  demand  deposits 

in  National  Banks  was 8,500,000,000 

The  total  outstanding  bonds  and 
stocks  of  all  the  Railroads  in  the 
United  States,  less  bonds  and 
stocks  owned  by  such  roads,  was   15,700,000,000 

The  total  assets  of  235  American 
level  premium  Life  Insurance  Com- 
panies on  the  31st  of  December, 
1915,  was 5,200,000,000 

This  total  is  expressed  through  forty-seven  miUion 
contracts. 

The  above  figures  as  to  Savings  Banks,  Trust  Com- 
panies and  National  Banks  are  probably  abnormal. 
They  include  the  tremendous  increase  in  deposits  made 
within  two  years  as  a  result  of  existing  war  conditions. 


158  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  corresponding  figures  on  the  30th  of  June,  1914, 
would  be  as  follows: 

Savings  Banks $4,936,000,000 

Trust  Companies 4,347,000,000 

National  Banks 6,268,000,000 

Life  Insurance — level  premium,  scientifically  con- 
structed life  insurance  has  outstanding  contracts 
amounting  to  S23,200,000,000  in  all.  Compared  with 
Sa\dngs  Banks,  Trust  Companies  and  National  Banks, 
fife  insurance  in  its  accumulations  of  money  stands  in 
normal  times  ahead  of  the  first  two  and  at  the  present 
time  ahead  of  the  first.  As  a  holder  of  contracts  that 
are  calculated  powerfully  to  affect  the  people  in  the 
future,  it  surpasses  all  the  railroads  combined  by 
several  billion  dollars.  These  Railroad  Stocks  and 
Bonds  are  much  less  dependable  than  the  contracts  of 
life  insurance,  because  Stocks  are  not  a  promise  to  paj^ 
at  all  and  frequently  do  not  represent  a  corresponding 
investment ;  Railroad  Bonds  do  not  generally  carry  any 
sinking  fund  provision.  American  life  insurance  stands 
pledged  to  pay  and  will  ultimately  pay  to  the  holders  of 
its  contracts  a  sum  greater  than  the  combined  deposits 
of  sa\dngs  banks,  trust  companies  and  national  banks. 

The  opportunity  here  is  ob\dous: — for  the  lawyer, 
for  the  salesman,  for  the  financier,  for  the  executive, 
for  the  physician,  for  the  sociologist.  This  world  of  life 
insurance  is  larger  than  the  world  of  any  single  group 
cited,  because  it  includes  them  all  and  gives  all  an 
added  significance.  Such  reflections  however  bring  us 
only  to  the  threshold  of  what  Life  Insurance  means. 

Statistics  are  sometimes  mere  statements  of  rela- 
tively unimportant  facts,  dead  things ;  sometimes  they 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  159 

are  alive,  sometimes  they  pulsate  with  hope  and  some- 
times prophecy  shines  through  them. 

Life  Insurance  statistics  are  h\'ing  things.  The 
social  superiority  of  Life  Insurance  is  only  partially 
expressed  by  these  contrasted  totals. 

A  million  dollars  covered  by  the  contracts  of  a  Life 
Insurance  Company  are  impressed  with  a  social  power 
unknown  to  a  million  dollars  in  a  Sa\'ings  Bank.  The 
money  of  a  Savings  Bank  or  a  Trust  Company  or  a 
Railroad  is  busy,  useful  money,  but  useful  as  it  is,  it 
is  not  impressed  with  the  singular  power  that  attaches 
to  Life  Insurance  money.  This  brings  us  to  the  very 
fundamentals  of  the  idea: 

When  Dr.  Halley  assembled  in  1693  the  observed 
facts  which  became  the  basis  for  the  first  table  of 
mortality,  he  made  a  discovery  which  in  its  present 
influence  on  sociology  ranks  with  the  greatest  of  dis- 
coveries, and  in  its  ultimate  effects  on  society  may 
ultimately  outrank  most  others. 

Emerson  tells  us  that  humanity  as  a  whole  is  walking 
along  the  edge  of  a  precipice  over  which  thousands 
are  quickly  thrust  if  the  price  of  bread  is  advanced  a 
few  cents  a  loaf.  All  that  stands  between  the  average 
family  and  destitution  is  the  earning  power  of  the  father. 
Just  behind  him  stalk  accident,  disease,  war  and 
economic  disaster,  any  one  of  which  in  a  moment  can 
take  away  the  only  safeguard  the  family  has.  The 
application  of  the  law  of  mortaUty  or  of  longevity 
through  life  insurance  binds  such  families,  millions  of 
them,  into  a  great  co-operative  guild  through  which 
the  life  of  the  bread-winner  is  instantly  capitalized  for 
the  direct  benefit  of  the  family  and  of  course  the 
indirect  benefit  of  society. 


160  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

This  transforms  the  mob  into  an  army;  it  substitutes 
coherence  for  incoherence;  certainty  for  uncertainty; 
solvency  for  insolvency;  it  meets  and  discharges  to  a 
large  degree  the  obligations  which  the  state  potentially 
assumes  with  the  creation  of  every  family.  If  the 
father  lives  presumably  those  obligations  will  be  dis- 
charged; if  he  dies  prematurely  there  is  a  default  to 
society.  The  orphan  asylums,  homes  for  the  aged  and 
destitute,  and  even  the  reformatories  and  peniten- 
tiaries, testify  to  the  present  extent  of  that  default. 
Life  Insurance  minimizes  that  default  through  a  direct, 
scientific,  practical  program.  Apart  from  the  pro- 
tection of  the  family,  this  is  a  service  to  the  state — 
generally  unrecognized — of  the  first  order. 

The  ser\dce  of  Life  Insurance  to  the  individual, 
morally,  is  equally  striking.  Panic  is  the  word  that 
most  frequently  explains  the  failure  of  men,  of  in- 
stitutions and  of  nations.  War  is  panic.  Reason 
ceases  somewhere  to  function  before  war  happens. 
Death  is  panic.  In  the  thoughts  of  every  serious- 
minded  man  is  the  fear  of  death;  not  because  men  are 
cowards  but  because  they  are  brave  and  rational. 
The  fear  is  born  of  anxiety  about  their  dependents. 
Against  the  remorseless  demands  of  mortality,  which 
is  organized,  certain  in  its  stride  but  uncertain  as  to 
where  its  stroke  will  fall,  stands  the  thin  unorganized 
red  line  of  the  indi\adual ;  and  panic  stands  hard  by. 

But  put  individuals  of  that  thin  line  into  touch  with 
their  fellows,  show  them  how  they  can  organize  and 
face  the  organized  and  remorseless  approach  of  the 
dread  enemy,  and  panic  disappears.  The  indi\'idual 
then  steps  out  with  lifted  forehead  and  a  new  courage. 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  161 

Shakespeare  describes  this  new  man  in  "Measure  for 
Measure"  as  being 

"*       *       *       *       *       *      fearless  of  what's 
Past,  present  or  to  come;  insensible 
Of  mortality,  and  desperately  mortal." 

Sociologically  the  largest  significance  of  Life  Insur- 
ance lies  in  service  generally  not  thought  of  at  all,  yet 
these  unheralded  qualities  are  the  ones  that  most 
appeal  to  the  imagination,  they  are  the  ones  which 
should  make  it  most  attractive  to  the  educated  man  as 
a  vocation.    I  di\dde  them  into  two  groups : 

1st.  Those  which  teach  rules  of  action  which 
must  ultimately  control  the  citizenship  of 
any  really  efficient  democracy;  those 
which  teach  the  world  what  responsible 
democracy  is. 

2d.  Those  which  not  only  teach  the  theory  of 
universal  brotherhood  but  under  prodi- 
gious difficulties  scientifically  apply  them. 

As  to  the  first  group: 

We  can  think  of  no  better  example  of  democracy 
than  our  own  country.  There  probably  is  in  all  history 
no  better  example.  And  yet  with  all  the  great  things 
it  has  done  who  is  not  conscious  of  some  grave  weak- 
nesses. Becoming  a  sovereign  the  citizen  refuses  to 
rule;  he  finds  money-making  more  attractive.  He 
has  no  scale  by  which  he  can  measure  his  obligation  to 
society  nor  any  by  which  he  can  tell  what  society  should 
give  him.  He  therefore  takes  all  he  can  get.  He 
seldom  worries  over  whether  what  he  gives  is  adequate 
— unless  it  takes  the  form  of  taxes.  The  mere  payment 
of  taxes  does  not  discharge  the  obligations  of  our 
citizenship.     There  are  grave  obligations  of  which  we 


162  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

seldom  think.  Some  of  our  obligations  are  daily,  some 
yearly,  some  once  in  four  years  and  some — and  those 
the  gravest — have  an  uncertain  periodicity. 

As  the  world  is  organized  now  war  is  as  certain  to 
come  to  us  as  the  sun  is  in  a  few  weeks  to  bring  back 
the  flowers.  To  defend  what  the  Fathers  created  is 
the  profoundest  of  obligations.  And  yet  until  Europe 
staged  and  began  to  play  an  epochal  tragedy  what 
American  thought  much  about  war,  of  the  certainty 
of  its  coming  and  when  it  came  how  he  would  meet  it? 
Now  we  stand  appalled — some  of  us  at  least — realizing 
that  while  we  can  and  must  have  a  paid  navy  we 
cannot  as  a  republic  have  a  great  hireling  army,  but 
that  we  must  have  a  great  available  army  nevertheless. 
We  realize  that  it  must  be  a  citizen  army  and  that  as 
men  we  are  physically  flabby  and  unfit,  that  we  have 
no  program  by  which  that  appalling  condition  can  be 
surely  remedied,  and,  worst  of  all,  that  some  are 
morally  equally  flabby  and  are  disposed  to  go  on  keeping 
both  feet  in  the  trough. 

The  truth  that  this  country  has  yet  to  learn — and  in 
learning  may  pay  a  bitter  price — is  that  in  no  form  of 
government  is  a  disciplined  citizenship  as  necessary 
as  in  ours  and  in  no  individual  governmental  instance 
has  that  disciphne  been  so  utterly  neglected.  Because 
the  source  of  our  sovereignty  is  in  the  citizen,  and 
therefore  the  same  citizen  must  both  rule  and  serve, 
must  both  give  and  take,  the  balance  must  be  pre- 
served or  ruin  is  as  certain  as  a  correct  balance  sheet  is 
inexorable.  We  haven't  bothered  ourselves  much  about 
that  balance  sheet.  We  haven't  seriously  attempted  to 
ascertain  definitely  what  each  citizen  must  give  and  do 
to  be  a  real  sovereign  as  he  professes  to  be  and  not  a 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  163 

defaulter  to  society  as  many  of  us  are.  Deficits  in 
business  can  be  ignored  and  concealed  for  a  time,  but 
in  the  end  they  must  be  met  to  the  last  penny  or  they 
assert  themselves  in  the  courts  of  bankruptcy.  Our 
social  deficit  has  been  accumulating  for  some  time. 
What  about  the  size  of  it?  Shall  we  ascertain  the 
truth  in  the  matter  of  defense  by  taking  our  feet  out 
of  the  trough  long  enough  to  establish  the  facts  and 
face  them,  or  shall  we  wait  until  flabby  and  unmobilized 
we  are  forced  to  face  the  industrial  competition  of  the 
highly  trained  and  centralized  units  of  Europe?  Shall 
we  wait  until  ready  to  be  looted  we  face  in  helpless 
terror  their  armies  and  fleets?  In  the  latter  case  the 
deficit  will  assert  itself  in  ruined  cities  if  not  in  lost 
liberties. 

I  invite  your  attention  to  an  International  republic 
whose  structure  indicates  a  way  out,  a  republic  in 
which  each  citizen  is  within  the  Hmits  of  his  capacity 
the  equal  of  every  other  citizen,  where  duty  and  rights 
are  exactly  measured  and  enforced,  where  there  is  and 
can  be  no  default  by  either  the  indi\ddual  or  the 
general  body,  where  each  citizen  is  certain  to  get  all 
he  deserves  and  no  more,  where  all  are  satisfied  because 
it  appears  that  the  majority  of  men  are  naturally 
satisfied  when  they  know  that  no  one  can  get  more 
than  they  can  for  the  same  value,  and  all  get  full  value. 
That  republic  is  the  republic  of  Life  Insurance.  It  is 
already  so  large  that  it  touches  the  interests  and  applies 
its  discipline  to  substantially  every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  the  United  States,  and  includes  with  them  on 
terms  of  true  democracy  and  equality  many  thousands 
of  different  races  and  creeds  who  live  under  totally 
different  jurisdications. 


164  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

This  Republic  is  first  of  all  financially  sane,  it  spends 
no  money  until  it  knows  exactly  whence  the  money  is 
to  come.  Its  contracts  are  based  on  exact  knowledge, 
and  yet  before  Halley  established  the  law  of  mortahty 
the  solution  of  its  problems  would  have  seemed  almost 
miraculous.  It  starts  with  a  table  of  mortality,  it 
assumes  that  for  the  life  of  the  contract  it  will  earn  a 
minimum  rate  of  interest,  it  adds  a  percentage  for 
expenses  which  if  conservatively  managed  it  never 
exceeds  and  by  scientifically  combining  these  three 
elements  it  puts  under  its  structure  a  foundation  as 
dependable  as  the  continuity  of  human  life. 

It  is  democratic,  efficient,  and  so  just  that  it  doesn't 
need  to  be  merciful.  It  is  the  greatest  peace  organiza- 
tion in  the  world.  In  civic  affairs  the  man  who  neglects 
his  civic  obligations  is  not  immediately  punished,  if 
indeed  he  ever  is;  he  rather  wins  than  loses  by  his 
default.  But  in  the  Republic  of  Life  Insurance  the 
quitter  loses.  He  gets  an  equity,  he  is  not  wronged,  he 
gets  all  he  has  fairly  paid  for  but  the  man  who  sticks 
gets  a  margin  more.  There  is  never  a  deficit.  The  poor 
man's  money  is  just  as  potent  as  the  rich  man's.  If 
the  rich  man  finally  gets  more,  be  sure  he  paid  more. 
Moreover  the  whole  structure  while  essentially  peaceful 
is  always  mobilized.  Generally  speaking  the  whole  of 
a  company's  assets,  with  all  its  variety  of  security 
stands  solidly  behind  the  smallest  as  well  as  the  largest 
pledge  of  the  institution. 

In  this  Republic  sovereignty  dwells  in  the  indi\'idual, 
without  distinction  of  sex,  but  the  sovereigns  neither 
neglect  their  duties  as  rulers  nor  do  they  attempt  to 
conduct  the  business  of  the  state  by  mass  meeting. 
They  delegate  enormous  discretion  to  a  few  men  and 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  165 

then  hold  them  responsible;  they  understand  that  to 
insure  efficiency  and  justice  power  must  be  exercised. 
They  have  learned  that  power,  if  responsible,  is  not  a 
menace,  but  a  necessity.  As  citizens  of  the  American 
Republic  we  follow  no  such  rule.  We  are  almost  as 
irresponsible  in  our  attitude  toward  government  as 
we  would  be  if  all  civic  responsibility  rested  with  an 
autocrat.  We  are  disposed  to  regard  the  government 
as  of  interest  to  us  only  during  the  excitement  of  an 
election.  We  look  on  the  soldier  with  suspicion  and 
on  politics  as  an  unworthy  game.  We  can  fail  to 
register  and  fail  to  vote  and  suffer  no  direct  penalty. 
Under  a  proper  enforcement  of  the  ideals  we  profess 
a  man  would  be  compelled  to  purge  himself  of  fault 
before  a  court  after  such  failure. 

The  Republic  of  Life  Insurance  in  short  offers  a 
model  of  what  the  relations  between  citizens  and  their 
government  should  be  in  a  democracy,  to  achieve 
efficiency  and  justice. 

As  to  the  second  group: 

If  there  ever  was  a  time — and  perhaps  there  was — 
when  it  was  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  people  to  see 
farther  than  the  natural  and  artificial  barriers  that 
had  divided  them  into  hostile  camps,  if  there  ever  was 
a  time  when  under  the  laws  of  nature  they  had  to 
fight  and  kill  each  other,  that  time  is  passing.  Assume 
if  you  please  that  the  results  of  this  war  will  be  dis- 
tinctly a  triumph  for  democracy  and  human  liberty. 
Nevertheless  the  horror  of  it,  the  agony  of  it,  the 
losses  it  brought,  the  burdens  it  laid  on  future  genera- 
tions will  bulk  larger  in  the  minds  of  men  than  any 
possible  military  victory.  The  people  will  have  won 
no  victory  if  it  does  not  eliminate  or  hereafter  control 


166  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  forces  and  conditions  which  resulted  in  this  red 
horror.  No  one  can  say  now  how  completely  that 
truth  will  grip  the  wills  of  men  when  peace  in  some 
form  comes.  But  that  there  will  be  tests  applied  to 
the  institutions  of  the  world  such  as  were  never  ap- 
plied before  is  beyond  question. 

What  is  the  one  hard,  inflexible  condition  that  has 
kept  and  still  keeps  the  people  of  the  world  apart? 
Whence  came  the  power  which  for  generations  has 
made  the  States  of  Europe  armed  camps  while  the 
people  as  citizens  traded  with  each  other  and  trusted 
each  other  and  had  in  their  hearts  no  fear  of  each  other? 

Whence  came  the  orders  which  in  a  twinkhng  trans- 
formed gentlemen  into  savages?  What  was  the  power 
that  has  already  killed  5,000,000  men  and  maimed  or 
captured  14,000,000  others?  What  is  it  that  now  keeps 
over  40,000,000  men  under  arms  or  in  training?  One 
answer  serves  for  all : 

UNCONDITIONED  SOVEREIGNTY. 

It  is  futile  to  speculate  now  on  why  men  chose  to 
develop  society  through  separate  sovereign  units  called 
nations ;  but  it  is  not  futile  to  speculate  on  whether  that 
program  has  not  outlived  its  usefulness.  Nations  as 
units  of  organized  life  will  of  course  continue;  that 
condition  is  not  on  trial  before  the  bar  of  humanity. 
The  dogma  that  is  on  trial  is  the  dogma  of  sovereignty. 
That  dogma  nearly  defeated  the  wisdom  of  Washington 
and  the  logic  of  Hamilton  in  1788.  Enough  of  it  sur- 
vived in  1861  so  that  it  again  reared  its  horrid  front 
and  it  died  here  only  after  four  years  of  fratricidal  war. 

And  how  the  dogma  lied  to  our  fathers  and  now  it 
lies  to  us!   How  it  appealed  to  pride  and  fears  in  1787 


Life  Insurance  as  a  Vocation  167 

and  1861 — just  as  it  now  appeals  to  the  pride  and  the 
fears  of  the  suffering  peoples  of  Europe, 

We  know  that  the  pride  it  always  appeals  to  is  false 
pride,  the  fears  it  awakens  are  groundless.  When  we 
put  that  pride  aside  in  1789  and  abandoned  those  fears 
— and  not  till  then — we  entered  on  the  career  that  has 
covered  this  hemisphere  with  free,  separate  and  yet 
united  commonwealths  and  made  it  the  desire  of  the 
world. 

This  Republic  is  the  great  exemplar  of  the  processes 
by  which  States  can  preserve  their  identity  and  their 
liberties  and  yet  be  merged  into  larger  States. 

Life  Insurance  is  the  great  exemplar  of  how  peoples 
of  separate  sovereignties  without  regard  to  race  or 
creed  can  be  merged  as  human  beings  into  an  inter- 
national organization — and  if  into  an  international 
organization  which  deals  with  men's  most  profound 
interests  why  not  into  an  international  State.  The 
Life  Companies  which  operate  internationally  have 
already  made  the  brotherhood  of  man  something  more 
than  a  poet's  dream.  They  have  been  amongst  the 
few  institutions  whose  ministrations  for  two  and  a 
half  years  have  gone  on  along  with  the  Red  Cross  and 
other  relief,  but  free  from  all  suggestion  of  charity. 
The  government  of  one  of  these  international  com- 
panies is  a  very  real  parliament  of  man,  a  prophecy  of 
the  greater  parliament  to  come. 

The  man  who  beheves  that  the  people  of  the  world 
will  ultimately  patch  up  some  sort  of  peace,  go  home 
to  mourn  for  their  dead,  bend  their  backs  under  the 
crushing  load  of  debt,  and  ask  no  further  questions, 
has  no  vision  and  no  faith.  That  they  will  bring  the 
dogma  of  sovereignty  to  bar  is  certain;  it  is  equally 


168  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

certain  that  they  will  ultimately  condemn  and  abandon 
it.  If  the  people  win  in  this  great  fight  they  must  then 
win  a  second  victory  and  their  second  victory  will  be 
greater  than  the  first  because  it  will  be  over  their  own 
prejudices  and  fears. 

Between  the  close  of  this  war  and  the  final 
destruction  of  this  dogma  many  years  may  lie.  But 
whether  the  years  be  few  or  many  is,  in  the  march  of 
events,  less  important  than  that  the  issue  should  be 
certain.  Who  would  not  like  to  make  those  years 
fewer?  What  educated  man  may  not  well  be  attracted 
by  life  insurance,  a  vocation  which  gives  a  new  meaning 
and  a  higher  significance  to  the  standard  professions 
and  distinctly  leads  in  the  thinking  and  in  the  methods 
which  foreshadow  the  destruction  of  this  dogma  and 
promise  the  world  salvation. 

The  vocations  or  professions  which  seek  these  great 
ends  will  keep  certain  principles  in  view — 

The  source  of  sovereignty — the  citizen; 

A  trained  citizenship; 

The  religion  of  self-respect; 

The  power  of  co-operation; 

The  solidarity  of  the  race; 

Recognition  of  the  supreme  value — human  life;  and 

The  merging  of  so-called  sovereignties  into  a  greater 
authority,  following  as  a  model  the  Federation  of 
the  Thirteen  Colonies  in  1789. 

In  the  realization  of  these  ideals  lie  the  real  purpose 
and  the  dynamics  of  life  insurance. 

As  a  vocation,  as  a  profession,  it  touches  the  im- 
agination; it  responds  to  the  problems  of  the  age;  its 
call  is  creative ;  its  gospel  is  prophetic ;  the  Brotherhood 
of  man  is  its  goal. 


WHY  WE  SHALL  FIGHT 


ADDRESS  AT  A  PATRIOTIC  RALLY,  RIV'ERDALE,  N.  Y.,  APRIL  28,  191: 


^NLY  those  of  us  who  are  well  on  toward 
three  score  years  of  age  have  any  vivid 
memory  of  the  Civil  War.  This  is  true 
North  and  South.  Two  generations  are 
embraced  in  the  period  which  separates  us 
from  Sumter  and  Appomattox.  In  that  time  we  have 
been  very  busy  in  peaceful  pursuits  and  have  almost 
never  thought  of  war.  Millions  from  other  lands  have 
come  to  our  shores,  accepted  the  responsibilities  of 
citizenship,  and  have  been  imperfectly  assimilated  by 
our  national  life.  These,  too,  hate  war.  They  fled 
from  its  shadow. 

Under  the  inspiration  of  a  society  in  which  the 
inalienable  rights  of  the  individual  were  declared  to  be 
paramount,  with  resources  at  hand  almost  unlimited 
in  both  variety  and  extent,  protected  by  an  almost 
impenetrable  isolation,  we  have  become  the  richest, 
the  most  homogeneous,  the  most  pacific  of  all  the  great 
nations.  We  have  come  to  hate  war  with  a  complete- 
ness that  is  comparable  only  with  Billy  Sunday's  ha- 
tred of  the  devil.  The  war  with  Spain  did  little  more 
than  give  us  a  thrill;  it  was  over  in  three  months — all 
except  the  shame  of  our  own  inefficiency  and  the 
scandals  that  attended — over  except  that  the  fruits  of 

12  169 


170  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

that  waT  territorially  moved  us  a  long  way  out  of  our 
isolation  and  toward  the  duties  which  we  now  face. 
We  are  just  beginning  to  realize  that. 

New  conditions,  new  duties,  new  problems  now  face 
us,  and  the  patriotic  acti\dties  of  this  secluded  section 
of  New  York  are  a  part  of  the  National  effort  to 
awaken  and  readjust  itself. 

There  is  and  has  been  nothing  the  matter  'w'ith 
the  patriotism  of  this  Nation;  but  the  Nation  had  to 
do  a  lot  of  readjusting  mentally  and  morally  before  it 
could  become  a  belligerent.  Think  of  it!  We  had 
assumed  that  such  wars  were  not  to  come  again.  For 
these  two  generations  we  have  not  only  peacefully 
developed  this  continent  but  we  have  seen  the  peoples 
of  the  world  generally  working  together,  trading  to- 
gether, thinking  much  the  same,  dressing  alike,  and 
erecting  a  great  international  fabric  of  credit  and  trade, 
the  destruction  of  which  we  knew  w^ould  be  sheer 
senseless  savagery  and  vandalism.  But  even  if  sav- 
agery reasserted  itself,  even  though  the  world  other- 
wise went  mad,  we  had  a  smug  feeling  that  it  could 
not  reach  us.     We  were  safe  because  isolated. 

Before  we  could  become  belligerents  we  had  to 
abandon  many  of  our  dreams.  We  had  to  wake  up 
and  realize  that  some  of  our  assumptions  were  erro- 
neous. We  had  consciously  to  admit  that  the  me- 
dieval Hun  still  lived  and  had  power  to  reach  across 
the  seas,  power  to  penetrate  our  isolation;  we  had  to 
revise  our  estimates  of  peoples,  and  that  is  as  difficult 
for  Nations  as  it  is  for  individuals.  We  were  obliged 
mentally  to  admit  that  we  must  revert  to  the  methods 
and  ideas  of  savagery,  and  that,  from  our  long  training 
in  the  ways  of  peace  and  because  of  our  ideals,  was  a 


Why  We  Shall  Fight  171 

more  difficult  task  than  it  was  or  could  be  for  any  other 
people  in  the  world. 

We  did  not  hesitate  so  long  over  what  we  should  do 
because  we  were  cowards,  nor  because  we  were  making 
money,  as  has  been  so  frequently  charged,  but  because 
we  believed  we  had  lifted  a  great  portion  of  the  world 
under  our  Federal  Constitution  above  the  shame  and 
terror  and  insanity  of  war,  and  it  was  difficult  for  us  to 
realize  that  we  had  not  done  that  after  all.  Before  we 
could  become  belligerents  we  had  mentally  to  admit 
a  large  measure  of  failure,  to  face  the  necessity  of 
reaction,  to  confess  that  the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  not  only  was  not  everywhere 
a  recognized  right  but  that  its  continued  existence  here 
was  imperilled. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  world  generally  slept  through  these 
two  generations.  There  were  abundant  signs  of  a 
gathering  storm.  Even  France  slept,  but  not  as  the 
Anglo-Saxon  did.  Every  Frenchwoman  who  has  given 
birth  to  a  man-child  within  forty  years  has  known  that 
he  would  sooner  or  later  have  to  face  the  identical 
monster  that  despoiled  France  in  1871,  through  the 
trick  of  a  lying  telegram  and  the  vanity  of  the  French 
Emperor.  Despoiled  of  two  great  provinces,  humili- 
ated and  prostrated  France  did  not,  as  she  struggled 
up  out  of  that  disaster,  comprehend  the  full  purpose 
of  Germany.  To  the  Frenchman  life  meant  something 
finer  than  plans  of  conquest.  With  all  that  she  had 
suffered,  and  all  that  she  feared,  France  still  believed 
that  the  solemnly  plighted  word  of  a  great  Nation, 
even  of  the  German  Nation,  could  be  relied  on. 

Great  Britain  did  not  comprehend  the  truth,  although 
she  faced  the  facts  across  a  very  narrow  arm  of  the  sea. 


172  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

She  could  see  Germany  and  her  trade  and  miUtary 
activities,  but  she  could  not  see  Germany's  soul. 
Alarmed,  puzzled,  Great  Britain  built  her  war  fleet  up 
as  she  saw  the  unconcealable  evidence  of  the  Teuton's 
purpose ;  but  she  did  not  see  the  necessity  for  anything 
beyond  the  defense  of  her  own  waterbound  Empire. 
She,  too,  believed  that  the  solemn  pledges  of  Nations 
could  be  relied  on.  Except  in  her  war  fleet,  England 
slept,  and  dreamed  of  Democracy's  triumph. 

But  the  Prussian  Monster  grew  and  never  slept. 
His  philosophers  and  his  Kaiser  told  the  world  what 
was  intended;  but  the  world  smiled  at  such  medieval 
foolishness  and  refused  to  believe  that  the  methods  of 
the  Dark  Ages  could  return.  The  Kaiser  asserted 
and  reasserted  his  partnership  with  the  Almighty,  and 
all  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  listened  with  mild  amuse- 
ment. These  were  the  vagaries  of  a  man  born  several 
centuries  too  late;  they  would  never  really  mislead  a 
great,  capable,  modern  people. 

It  has  taken  the  world  almost  three  years  to  realize 
that,  in  Germany,  autocracy,  government  by  Divine 
Right,  is  making  its  last,  its  most  worthy  stand. 
German  autocracy  represents  autocracy  at  its  best  and 
therefore  when  most  dangerous — at  its  best  because 
while  it  mercilessly  crushes  out  the  individual,  it  is 
as  a  machine  splendidly  efficient  and  honest  in  admin- 
istration. Moreover,  it  had  the  wisdom  in  matters  of 
trade  development  to  adopt  a  program  more  advanced 
than  any  other  Nation;  it  put  the  whole  power  of  its 
centralized  life  behind  its  factories  and  its  ships  and 
all  they  produced  and  carried.  German  autocracy 
fought  the  world  in  trade,  in  the  shop,  and  on  the  sea 
long  before  it  drew  the  sword. 


Why  We  Shall  Fight  173 

After  August  1,  1914,  it  didn't  take  France  long  to 
awake  from  her  lethargy;  it  took  Great  Britain  much 
longer;  it  has  taken  us  nearly  three  years,  and  we  are 
not  awake  yet. 

And  what  finally  shocked  and  partially  aroused  us? 

We  kept  silence  —  to  our  shame  —  when  Germany 
forswore  herself  and  violated  Belgium's  neutrality. 

It  all  seemed  so  far  away;  we  were  so  snug  and  safe 
across  the  sea.  It  was  dreadful,  but  was  it  our  busi- 
ness? Then  came  the  second  great  shock,  the  second 
warning  that  a  medievalism  more  hideous  than  that 
represented  by  Attila  was  abroad  in  the  world.  The 
Lusitania  was  sunk.  Aroused  by  that  horror  our  peo- 
ple would  have  followed  the  President  in  whatever  he 
did  then.  He  only  protested,  and  it  may  yet  appear 
that  his  course  was  wise.  Then  followed  other  evi- 
dences of  what  the  Hun  intended — until  finally  the 
Essex  was  torpedoed.  Then  our  President  spoke  in 
different  terms.  Germany  promised  to  sink  no  more 
American  ships  without  observing  the  rules  of  inter- 
national law,  intimating,  however,  that  she  might  re- 
turn to  her  barbarous  methods  if  w^e  failed  to  make 
England  cease  certain  practices.  Meantime,  as  the 
Allies  fought  on,  they  came  to  understand — to  grasp 
the  full  significance  of  Germany's  intentions;  they  came 
to  see  that  Serbia  and  Belgium  were  merely  incidents 
in  a  larger  issue;  they  understood  what  the  sneer  that 
reduced  a  solemn  treaty  to  a  scrap  of  paper  meant, 
what  the  shooting  of  Edith  Cavell  and  Captain  Fryatt 
meant.  They  slowly  recognized  that  this  was  the  great 
fight  between  forces  that  have  been  irreconcilable  from 
the  beginning,  the  death  grapple  between  Democracy 
and  Autocracy.     At  first  the  Allies  understood  and 


174  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

approved  our  neutrality.  Then,  as  the  contest  devel- 
oped and  the  real  issues  emerged,  they  said:  "Where 
is  America?  This  is  her  fight.  She  above  all  nations 
has  been  the  beneficiary  of  the  Democratic  principle. 
Can  it  be  that  she  will  not  defend  it  in  its  hour 
of  peril?" 

Gradually,  as  we  stayed  neutral,  there  grew  up,  and 
particularly  among  our  Canadian  friends,  a  feeling  of 
bitterness;  we  were  held  in  an  increasing  contempt. 
We  were  in  danger  of  being  rated  a  people  which, 
favored  above  all  others  by  nature  and  benefited  above 
all  others  by  the  Democratic  impulses  of  the  world, 
nevertheless  became  poltroons  at  the  supreme  crisis. 

Our  own  mental  readjustments  can  best  be  illus- 
trated by  contrasting  two  utterances  made  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson  within  four  months: 

As  lately  as  December  16,  1916,  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  through  his  Secretary  of  State,  said  in  a 
note  addressed  to  all  the  belhgerents: 

"He  (the  President)  takes  the  liberty  of  calling 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  objects  which  the  states- 
men of  the  belligerents  on  both  sides  have  in  mind  in 
this  war  are  virtuall}^  the  same,  as  stated  in  general 
terms  to  their  own  people  and  to  the  world." 

President  Wilson  did  not  mean  to  create  the  impres- 
sion that  he  thought  and  we  thought  that  the  cause  of 
each  side  was  equally  just,  but  the  language  used  made 
that  impression.  Forces  dangerous  to  Anglo-Saxon  soli- 
darity began  to  stir  when  we  seemed  to  say  that  we  saw 
no  difference  in  the  two  causes.  Within  a  few  days 
after  that  message  was  sent  to  the  powers,  we  hadn't  a 
friend  left  amongst  the  nations.  We  who  ought  to  have 
reacted  quickest  when  this  great  assault  on  Liberty  was 


Why  We  Shall  Fight  175 

made,  continued  to  hesitate,  while  Frenchmen  and 
EngHshmen  and  Canadians  died  by  thousands. 

Then  came  the  logical  conclusion  of  the  Hun's  pro- 
gram. On  January  31,  1917,  we  were  in  effect  told  to 
get  off  the  seven  seas.  We  were  told  that  we  must  fly 
on  our  ships  a  new  and  prescribed  emblem,  that  we 
must  keep  Old  Glory  in  a  place  named  and  nowhere 
else,  that  we  must  sail  along  a  certain  parallel  of  lati- 
tude, and  could  send  one  passenger  ship  a  week  to 
Falmouth.  We  were  told  that  every  other  American 
ship  not  so  decorated  found  within  a  huge  section  of 
the  Eastern  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean  would  be 
sunk  without  warning.  We  disregarded  these  insult- 
ing directions  and  the  Hun  sank  our  ships  in  violation 
of  every  rule  of  international  law  and  civilized  warfare. 
Out  of  the  bloody  struggle  itself  there  came  suddenly 
to  us  a  definition  of  what  the  Allies  were  fighting  for. 
We  saw  the  issue  at  last.  It  was  translated  into  words 
b}^  the  same  man  who  spoke  on  the  16th  of  December, 
1916.  Speaking  to  the  Congress  on  April  2,  1917, 
President  Wilson  finally  said: 

"The  present  German  submarine  warfare  against 
commerce  is  a  warfare  against  mankind.  It  is  a  war 
against  all  nations  *  *  *  .  The  challenge  is  to  all 
mankind  *  *  *  .  We  are  now  about  to  accept  the 
gage  of  battle  with  this  natural  foe  to  liberty  and  shall, 
if  necessary,  spend  the  whole  force  of  the  nation  to 
check  and  nullify  its  pretensions  and  its  power.  We 
are  glad  now  that  we  see  the  facts  with  no  veil  of  false 
pretense  about  them,  to  fight  thus  for  the  ultimate 
peace  of  the  world  *  *  *  .  The  world  must  be  made 
safe  for  democracy  *  *  *  .  We  have  no  selfish  ends 
to  serve,  we  desire  no  conquest,  no  dominion." 


176  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

This  utterance  shocked  a  self-satisfied  and  still  leth- 
argic people  into  some  measure  of  action.  It  stated  the 
only  cause  that  seemed  great  enough  for  us  to  fight 
for.  What  Belgium  and  Serbia  and  the  Lusitania 
and  the  cruel  slaughter  of  American  citizens  could 
not  do,  this  call  accomplished.  There  is  and  has 
been  nothing  the  matter  with  our  patriotism;  but 
the  old  war  cries  do  not  easily  stir  it  now.  Ours  has 
come  to  be  the  larger  patriotism  of  true  democracy. 
We  are  slow  to  fight.  We  will  not  fight  for  conquest 
or  trade;  but  we  will  fight  for  liberty.  We  will  rather 
suffer  much  and  even  endure  being  misunderstood. 
We  struck  the  true  note  when  we  freed  Cuba  and  left 
her  mistress  of  her  own  destiny. 

We  enter  this  war  now  because  we  "can  do  no  other". 

If  we  do  our  share  in  defending  the  hberty  of  the 
world,  in  restoring  a  peace  that  wiU  mean  peace  and 
not  a  period  of  preparation  for  another  war,  we  shall 
have  accomplished  four  great  practical  things,  all  for- 
warding a  world  democracy  and  the  estabUshment  of 
the  principles  of  our  Federal  Constitution: 

1st.  We  shall  secure  universal  training  and  ser\ace, 
and  shall  have  taken  the  first  definite  step  in  the 
production  of  a  disciplined  citizenship.  A  disci- 
plined citizenship  is  more  necessary  in  a  democracy 
than  in  an  autocracy. 

2d.  We  shall  have  reunited  the  Anglo-Saxon  world, 
how  closely  I  don't  know,  but  let  us  hope  suf- 
ficiently to  nullify  in  large  measure  the  fatuity 
and  folly  of  King  George  III  and  his  ministers, 
which  split  that  world  in  twain  almost  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago. 


Why  We  Shall  Fight  177 

3d.  We  shall  have  earned  the  approval  and  confi- 
dence of  all  Central  and  South  America  where  we 
have  always  been  feared  and  misunderstood;  that 
will  be  an  achievement  of  great  value  to  democracy. 

4th.  We  shall  have  helped  to  unite  all  democratic 
peoples  in  a  League  or  Federation  so  mighty  that 
no  man  or  group  of  men  obsessed  by  ambition  and 
an  insane  belief  in  rule  by  Divine  Right  will  ever 
again  be  able  so  nearly  to  crucify  humanity. 

As  we  face  sufferings  of  which  we  have  no  conception, 
we  remember  that  little  band  of  our  forebears — our 
political  if  not  our  lineal  forebears — who  stood  by  that 
rude  bridge  in  Concord  in  April,  1775,  and  "fired  the 
shot  heard  round  the  world".  We  enter  this  war  in 
their  spirit,  the 

"  Spirit  that  made  those  heroes  dare 
To  die  and  leave  their  children  free  ". 


"A  KNOCK  AT  THE  DOOR" 


ADDRESS  BEFORE  A  MASS  MEETING 

OF  LIFE  INSURANCE  AGENTS,  CENTURY  THEATRE,  NEW  YORK 

TUESDAY  EVENING,  MAY  29,  1917 


"I  approve  most  heartily  your  suggestion  that  the  life  insurance 
"agents  devote  one  or  two  days  to  the  sole  work  of  placing  Liberty 
"Bonds.    *    *    *    *  W.  G.  McADOO,  Secretary" 

to  Life  Underwriters 

EFORE  Rhode  Island  entered  the  Federal 
Union  it  had  existed  as  a  ci\'ic  entity  for 
137  years  under  a  charter  granted  to  Roger 
Williams.  That  instrument  was  so  Hberal 
and  advanced  in  its  theories  of  human 
rights,  so  entirely  in  harmony  with  the  doctrines  of  the 
great  charter  of  1787  that  when  the  State  entered  the 
Union  no  change  in  its  already  ancient  fundamental 
law  was  necessar3^ 

Roger  Williams  was  one  of  freedom's  great  prophets; 
yet  because  of  his  theories  of  individual  liberty  and  of 
government  he  was  persecuted  and  banished  from 
Massachusetts  Bay  where  freedom  is  supposed  to  have 
been  cradled. 

When  our  Federal  Constitution  was  written  men 
began  to  understand  that  Roger  Williams  was  an 
earher  if  not  a  greater  prophet  than  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son.    He  had  prepared  the  way. 

We  are  now  at  war.  We  are  at  war  for  reasons  so 
unselfish  that  the  average  citizen  needs  to  be  quickened, 
to  be  quickened  morally  and  mentally  in  order  to  react 

178 


"A  Knock  at  the  Door"  179 

to  the  standards  which  the  nation  has  set  up  under 
the  leadership  of  Woodrow  Wilson. 

In  the  labor  of  that  quickening  what  group  of  our 
citizens  is  most  certainly,  most  completely  equipped  for 
service?  Who  have  prepared  the  way?  Who  can  best 
preach  this  relatively  new  gospel:  the  gospel  of  war 
without  hate  or  desire  of  conquest  or  indemnities  or 
material  gain?  the  gospel  of  war  not  for  peace  first  but 
for  justice  first  ?  WTiat  men  by  training,  by  convic- 
tion, by  the  principles  which  they  have  advocated, 
have  taught  the  world  constantly  and  mightily  the 
truths  for  the  wider  establishment  of  which  we  as  a 
nation  are  now  about  to  fight :  individual  responsibility 
and  sovereignty,  liberty  with  justice,  the  economic 
power  of  co-operation  and  the  supreme  value  of  all 
human  life?  Who  have  labored  to  erect  certain  great 
peaceful  fabrics  of  faith  and  credit  and  values  which 
have  become  in  effect  International  Republics  limited 
by  no  savage  frontiers?  Who  have  labored  success- 
fully in  the  development  of  world-wide  enterprises  which 
long  since  foreshadowed  the  post-bellum  dream  of  uni- 
versal justice  and  permanent  peace? 

Before  we  as  a  people  undertook  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy,  who  had  already  long  labored  to 
make  it  safe  for  the  defenceless? 

To  all  these  queries  one  answer: 

You  and  thousands  of  others  like  you  who  carry  the 
Rate  Book — the  Bible  of  true  democracy  and  of  sound 
economics.  You  have  had  this  equipment,  you  have 
preached  these  doctrines,  and  you  have  done  these  things. 

Your  business  is  teaching  men — indi\'iduals — to  do 
their  duty.  You  constantly  fight  the  natural  inertia  of 
selfishness.     Men  know  that  all  must  die,  but  most 


180  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

men  think  that  the  other  fellow  will  be  the  one  to  go. 
Endowed  with  good  health,  busy  at  his  appointed  work, 
death  seems  far  off  and  no  man  hkes  even  to  discuss  it. 
"Why  worry?  Why  surrender  time  or  money  as 
against  a  contingency  that  of  course  threatens  others 
but  not  me?"  is  about  the  train  of  thought  of  the 
average  man. 

There  is  a  striking  similarity  between  this  mental 
attitude  and  the  attitude  of  the  American  people  to- 
ward war, — toward  this  war.  "Why  should  we  worry? 
We  are  protected  against  invasions  by  two  great  oceans. 
We  love  peace  and  hate  war.  We  want  no  other 
people's  territory.  We  have  no  designs  on  other  people's 
rights.  War  may  come  to  others;  it  may  come  to  us 
some  time  but  not  now."  That  fairly  expressed  our 
feelings  up  to  April  2,  1917. 

Then  something  happened.  Just  as  there  comes  a 
day  to  every  man  when  he  realizes  that  death  is  for 
him  as  well  as  for  his  brother,  so  on  the  second  of  April 
we — some  of  us  at  least — realized  that  war  meant  no 
longer  to  make  favorites  of  us  but  in  its  hideous  activi- 
ties would  thereafter  have  no  regard  for  our  high  pro- 
fessions and  love  of  peace.  But  not  all  of  us  under- 
stood that  instantly.     Some  do  not  grasp  the  truth  now. 

Your  ordinary  work  as  life  insurance  men  is  rendered 
very  easy  when  your  prospect  has  squarely  confronted 
his  duty,  when  he  has  either  mentally  worked  the 
problem  out  under  your  tutelage  or  has  been  shocked 
by  some  physical  circumstance  into  a  realization  of  his 
indi\'idual  weakness.  Then  he  responds.  Then  he 
gets  ready. 

The  nobility  of  your  work  day  by  day,  in  the  undra- 
matic  times  of  peace,  lies  in  this:     You  persuade  men 


"A  Knock  at  the  Door''  181 

to  think  when  the  natural  tendency  is  not  to  think. 
You  persuade  them  to  face  duty — when  the  call  of  duty 
is  uncomfortable,  when  it  seems  indeed  almost  an  ab- 
straction. You  persuade  them  to  prepare  for  loss  and 
to  make  sacrifices  in  that  preparation  when  no  sense 
of  danger  lives  in  their  consciousness.  You  labor  to 
make  men  a  little  bigger,  a  little  more  unselfish,  a  little 
more  heroic,  a  little  more  rational,  a  little  less  pro- 
vincial and  a  little  more  God-Uke  than  the  average  man 
naturally  is.  Who  attempts  daily  a  more  difficult  or  a 
nobler  task?  What  other  training  so  perfectly  equips 
men  for  the  labor  that  confronts  us  all  to-night,  as 
patriots?  This  particular  call  of  the  nation  finds  you 
so  ready  that  you  have  only  substantially  to  go  on  doing 
your  usual  work.  The  charter  which  controls  your 
activities  needs  no  change. 

The  day  has  come  when  America — generous  but  self- 
centered,  idealistic  but  intensely  practical,  peace-loving 
and  war-hating — must  be  shaken  from  her  lethargy, 
must  be  taught  that  in  this  little  world  rivers  of  human 
blood  cannot  flow  without  draining  her  veins  also. 

There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  the  patriotism  of 
our  people;  they  have  lost  none  of  their  idealism,  none 
of  their  love  of  liberty — just  as  there  is  nothing  the 
matter  with  the  individual  man's  love  of  his  family. 
Your  task  as  life  insurance  men  with  the  individual,  is 
to  make  him  appreciate  the  obvious;  your  task  as 
patriots  with  the  nation,  is  exactly  the  same.  The 
first  task  ought  to  be  easy,  but  we  know  that  it  is  not; 
the  second  task  must  be  performed  however  difficult 
it  may  be. 

On  the  5th  and  6th  of  June  you  and  your  fellows  will 
sell  Liberty  Loan  Bonds  exclusively  (I  hope  you'll  sell 


182  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

them  incidentally  every  day) — bonds  which  rest  on 
the  faith  of  a  free  and  mighty  people.  Why  does  the 
Government  sell  these  pledges?  Because  it  believes 
and  on  our  behalf  has  declared  that  the  natural,  the 
inalienable  rights  of  humanity  are  desperately  assailed 
and  that  even  our  own  liberties  are  imperiled.  Unless 
the  people  can  be  made  to  see  that,  they  will  not  buy 
these  bonds.  Until  a  man  has  been  shocked  into  an 
appreciation  of  his  inability  to  carry  the  risk  of  his  own 
mortahty  you  can't  insure  his  life.  Until  a  peace- 
loving  nation  has  been  shaken  out  of  its  natural  leth- 
argy it  is  difficult  to  make  it  understand  that  a  given 
condition  is  a  deadly  menace,  when  that  condition  is 
physically  a  long  way  off. 

Later  on  many  of  you  may  take  your  places  under 
the  flag  in  the  trenches  or  on  the  sea.  Once  the  nation 
is  aroused  there  can  be  but  one  result.  These,  how- 
ever, are  the  days  of  hesitation.  It  all  seems  so  horrible, 
so  impossible.  To  arouse  our  people  Paul  Revere  must 
again  go  thundering  through  the  countryside.  Signals 
of  great  danger  have  been  flashed  to  us  from  the  watch 
tower  as  they  were  to  him,  and  there  must  be  riders  or 
the  people  will  not  be  awake  and  ready.  And  what  do 
the  signals  tell?  They  tell  that  a  great  nation  drunk 
with  power  has  forsworn  itself;  that  the  Lusitania  has 
been  sunk  in  such  \'iolation  of  every  natural  impulse  of 
civihzed  men  that  it  is  clearly  a  case  of  conscious 
barbarism;  that  Edith  Cavell  has  been  shot;  that 
Belgium  has  been  outraged  again  and  again;  that  the 
young  womanhood  of  Northern  France  has  been  de- 
bauched by  savages  more  ruthless  than  the  Huns ;  that 
a  power  is  raging  through  the  land  and  lurking  under- 
sea as  sharks  lurk,  in  order  to  strike  as  sharks  strike,  a 


"A  Knock  at  the  Door''  183 

power  which  jeers  at  the  principles  of  our  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  mocks  at  government  by  the 
people.  If  the  true  significance  of  those  danger  signals 
can  be  driven  home,  there  will  be  no  trouble  about  the 
bonds  nor  about  the  other  bilHons  yet  to  come ;  but  on 
June  5th  and  6th  Paul  Revere  must  ride  again;  there 
must  come  to  every  home  in  the  Nation  as  there  came 
to  every  home  in  Concord  and  Lexington  on  that  April 
morning  in  1775: 

"A  voice  in  the  darkness,  a  knock  at  the  door, 
"And  a  word  that  shall  echo  forevermore." 

On  June  5th  and  6th  you  will  ride  to  help  quicken 
the  patriotism,  the  idealism  of  the  nation.  You  are 
already  organized;  you  are  veterans  in  a  like  ser\ice; 
you  know  what  the  signals  mean  and  you  know  your 
duty.  You  can  qualify  in  this  fight  for  Liberty  as 
completely  as  Rhode  Island  did  under  Roger  WiUiams's 
charter.  You  will  thereby  help  to  win  from  the  people 
assent  to  the  high  and  unselfish  purpose  which  has  made 
our  Government  denounce  and  attack  this  Prussian 
monster. 

During  our  Civil  War — the  wounds  of  which  are  now 
happily  healed — the  plain  people — always  more  or  less 
mute — expressed  their  loyalty  to  their  great  weary 
Leader  in  the  White  House  through  song.  In  one  of 
these  songs  they  said: 

"We  are  coming  Father  Abraham." 

The  message  so  sent  reached  Lincoln  and  he  was 
cheered  and  strengthened  by  it. 

The  masses  are  mute  to-day.  They  have  no  me- 
dium through  which  to  express  to  our  war-worn  Allies 
their  wonder,   their  admiration,   their  affection,   and 


184  Lei  Us  Have  Peace 

their  devotion.  By  your  work  on  these  appointed 
days  3^ou  will  help  to  give  these  emotions  a  voice:  a 
voice  which  will  daily  rise  in  volume  and  power,  a 
voice  which  when  full-throated  will  sound  round  the 
earth  bringing  hope  and  courage  to  all  lovers  of  liberty, 
a  voice  which  shall  say  to  our  comrades  over  the  sea: 

"We  are  coming  0!  glorious  sister,  France! 

"We  are  coming  O!  great  Mother  England! 

"Coming  because  Liberty  is  assailed  and  we  have  not 

"forgotten  that  our  fathers  did  not  fear  death,  for 

"liberty's  sake. 

"Coming  because  we  have  highly  resolved  anew  that 

"government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 

"people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


BELGIUM 


BELGIUM 


FROM  AN  ADDRESS,  NEW  YORK,  SEPTEMBER,  1917 


jINCE  the  Greeks  stood  at  Thermopylae 
and  stopped  the  rush  of  the  Persian  hordes 
there  has  been  no  parallel  to  what  the 
world  saw  on  the  three  fateful  days  in 
early  August,  1914,  when  Belgium  chose 
death  rather  than  dishonor. 

Since  Joan  of  Arc  faced  her  accusers  and  stood  un- 
dismayed while  the  fagots  were  lighted  about  her  the 
world  has  seen  no  more  heroic  and  pathetic  figure  than 
Belgium  personified  in  her  youthful  and  intrepid  leader. 
King  Albert. 

Belgium  has  quickened  the  soul  of  the  world.     She 

has  made  us  put  a  new  estimate  on  men  and  events. 

We  see  John  Brown  of  Ossawatomie  in  a  new  and 

glorious  light;  we  catch  a  new  inspiration  from  the 

martyrdom  of  John  Huss. 

Power  of  arms,  masses  of  wealth,  vast  territories, 
millions  of  people  shrink  and  shrivel  when  there  blazes 
out  in  the  consciousness  of  men  a  recognition  that  after 
all  the  only  great  thing  in  the  world  is  self-respect,  the 
Divine  fearlessness  which  sustained  Jesus  Christ  and 
Socrates  and  all  the  saints,  religious  and  political,  who 
have  died  for  humanity.  The  power  that  has  periodi- 
cally requickened  the  conscience  of  the  world  has  some- 

13  185 


186  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

times  found  expression  through  a  man  and  sometimes 
through  a  people. 

Since  1832  Belgium  has  been  the  keystone  in  the 
arch  of  international  good  faith.  On  the  physical  in- 
tegrity of  Belgium  all  the  great  European  sovereignties 
agreed.  Her  soil  was  to  be  as  sacrosanct  as  the  sol- 
emnly pledged  word  of  great  nations  could  make  it. 

All  the  powers,  including  Belgium,  beheved  in  Ger- 
many's good  faith.  The  pledge  held  through  the  war 
of  1870.  Few  doubted  that  it  would  hold  always. 
Then  under  the  high-sounding  phrase  of  "military  ne- 
cessity", Germany  proceeded  to  smash  the  one  great 
compact  under  which  sovereign  states  had  estabhshed 
the  higher  law  of  internationality.  And  what  was 
Germany's  necessity?  The  necessity  of  the  burglar 
and  the  assassin — no  more.  A  nation  cannot  be  assas- 
sinated and  leave  ''no  trace".  The  record  in  Belgium 
will  endure  to  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time. 

Little  Belgium  defied  the  perfidious  monster  and 
therefore  it  is  that  Belgium  has  become  the  monitor  of 
the  self-respect  of  men.  She  met  the  first  rush  of  the 
new  Attila,  the  organized  forces  of  barbarism,  the  lust 
of  power,  the  demands  of  a  monster  criminal,  almost 
alone,  almost  unaided. 

She  had  to  decide  quickly.  She  w^as  first  taken  up 
into  a  high  place,  shown  the  riches  of  the  world,  prom- 
ised ease  and  recompense  and  safety  if  she  would  bow 
down.  And  what  a  temptation  it  must  have  been! 
How  it  must  have  appealed  to  her  practical  statesmen! 
How  such  an  appeal  made  here  would  go  home  to 
certain  United  States  Senators!  If  she  resisted  she 
couldn't  stop  Germany.  She  knew  that.  Germany 
would  pass  through  with  or  without  her  consent.     Ger- 


Belgium  187 

many  would  probably  do  all  she  planned  to  do  in  any 
event.  Therefore  why  hesitate?  If  she  resisted  she 
had  ever}d:hing  to  lose  and  for  that  loss  no  reasonable 
prospect  of  gain.  By  yielding  she  would  lose  no  ma- 
terial thing,  she  would  undertake  no  quixotic  enter- 
prise; she  would  simply  step  aside  and  let  the  monster 
attack  its  real  objective. 

But  Belgium  had  a  soul  as  high  and  serene  as  the 
soul  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans.  Between  dishonor  and 
death  she  chose  death,  and  her  land  has  been  a  Calvary 
from  that  day  to  this. 

The  shame  of  the  assault,  the  moral  heroism  of  the 
resistance,  we  did  not  as  a  people  grasp.  It  was  all  so 
far  away  and  the  Beast  that  outraged  Belgium  lived 
and  worked  insidiously  in  our  very  midst,  and  cleverly 
dulled  our  moral  sense.  He  was  very  busy,  and,  as 
always,  very  efficient.  His  appeal  was  cunning  and  it 
was  effective  for  nearly  three  years.  Without  any 
real  appreciation  of  whether  or  not  it  was  morally 
infamous  for  us  to  be  "in"  or  "out"  we  elected  a 
President  on  the  cry  "He  has  kept  us  out  of  war". 
In  the  light  of  President  Wilson's  later  action,  in  view 
of  his  splendid  leadership,  I  wonder  whether  he  now 
remembers  that  cry  with  any  satisfaction.  But  we 
were  then  all — or  nearly  all — alike.  We  couldn't 
clearly  see  Belgium;  we  didn't  understand  the  situation 
even  when  the  unspeakable  Brute  sank  the  Lusitania. 
We  are  only  beginning  to  understand  Belgium  now. 
We  must  understand  her  or  we  are  lost. 

Belgium  is  the  Light  of  the  World.  Belgium  is  the 
Hope  of  the  World  unless  hope  is  to  die. 

In  a  physical  sense  Belgium  cannot  be  restored. 
Morally  she  needs  no  restoration.     We  are  they  who 


188  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

need  moral  reconstruction.  We  are  climbing  now 
slowly  toward  the  heights  where  Belgium  stands  with 
glorious  France  and  mighty  England.  We  are  begin- 
ning to  understand  that  we  cannot  share  in  the  moral 
regeneration  of  the  world  unless  we  unite  in  its  sac- 
rifices. 

We  cannot  win  a  share  in  Belgium's  moral  grandeur 
by  restoring  her  cities,  for  the  same  reason  that  Ger- 
many could  not  sully  that  grandeur  by  destroying  her 
cities.  If  we  rise  to  Belgium's  level,  we  must  pay  the 
price:  that  price  is  primarily  spiritual.  It  calls  us 
now.  As  Antony  exhibited  to  the  Romans  Caesar's 
bloody  mantle  and  showed  the  ugly  sht  made  by 
Casca's  dagger  so  Conscience  and  Human  Pity  show 
us  the  wounds  of  Belgium,  and  France  and  Poland  and 
Serbia,  and  wait  to  see  whether  we  are  that  Antony 
that  will  put  a  tongue  in  every  gaping  wound  to  stir 
the  world  for  vengeance  and  for  justice. 

Our  moral  test  in  one  sense  was  not  quite  so  high  as 
that  applied  to  Belgium.  She  had  no  time  to  organize 
her  soul.  We  had  nearly  three  years.  But  in  another 
sense  our  test  was  severer  than  Belgium's.  No  savage 
was  knocking  at  our  doors;  we  did  not  suddenly  have 
to  become  either  serfs  or  heroes;  our  decision  was 
made  deliberately;  we  had  time  to  count  the  cost. 
When  the  average  American  citizen  decided  last  April 
to  support  President  Wilson,  that  citizen  climbed  to 
heights  never  before  trod  by  free  men.  He  showed 
himself  a  statesman;  he  showed  himself  a  worthy  de- 
scendant of  the  men  who  stood  at  Concord  and  "fired 
the  shot  heard  around  the  world". 

And  therefore  it  is  that  we  are  now  mobilizing  our 
power.     In  spite  of  politicians  and  their  ambitions,  in 


Belgium  189 

spite  of  slackers  and  traitors,  in  spite  of  an  espionage 
which  penetrates  even  the  remote  corners  of  our  Gov- 
ernment, in  spite  of  the  yellow  streak  in  many  of  us,  in 
spite  of  our  horror  of  war,  in  spite  of  everything,  and 
without  regard  to  any  costs,  we  are  gathering  our 
power.  Not  alone  our  material  power  but  our  moral 
consciousness.  We  are  seeing  Belgium  as  she  is.  We 
are  seeing  Germany  as  she  is.  We  are  beginning  to 
understand  what  each  stands  for. 

The  peoples  that  hesitate  after  getting  a  clear  vision 
of  the  issue  before  mankind  to-day  deserve  to  perish. 
Oceans  may  protect  them  for  a  time,  but  who  or  what 
shall  protect  them  from  themselves?  A  correct  moral 
vision  for  us  at  least  made  all  the  rest  ine\dtable.  Men 
who  get  that  \dsion  no  longer  count  the  cost;  neither 
shall  we.  Women  do  not  weep  when  their  sons  march 
away;  ours  will  not.  If  to  assert  our  moral  standards 
it  is  necessary  that  a  million  of  our  boys  die — so  be  it. 
Better  that  they  should  physically  die  and  thereby 
save  the  nation's  soul  than  that  we  should  for  a  season 
rot  in  wealth  and  safety. 

The  road  to  Belgium  leads  through  Berlin. 

The  German  menace  lies  in  her  assumption  of  superi- 
ority. Given  that  conviction  amongst  any  people  and 
the  achievement  of  the  ambitions  of  politicians  be- 
comes the  duty  of  citizenship.  There  are  other  insti- 
tutions in  the  world  that  rest  on  Uke  assumptions,  and 
they  will  have  to  be  dealt  with  in  time;  but  Germany 
is  the  present  enemy  of  humanity.  She  must  change 
her  attitude,  her  declared  purposes  and  ideals,  or  she 
must  be  crushed.  There  can  be  no  peace,  there  can 
be  no  morality  in  the  world  until  one  or  the  other  is 
achieved. 


190  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

We  long  for  peace,  although  as  yet  we  have  done 
little  to  win  it.  But  when  we  decide  about  the  terms 
of  peace  let  our  decision  be  as  fearless  as  Belgium's 
decision  was  on  August  3,  1914. 

Belgium  could  easily  have  lost  her  soul  that  day.  By 
paltering,  by  compromising,  we  can  easily  lose  our  souls 
now. 

Peace  proposals  which  deal  only  with  what  is  expe- 
dient, which  do  not  recognize  the  moral  outrage  as  well  as 
the  physical  ruin  of  Belgium  are  only  another  form  of 
the  temptation  which  Belgium  so  gloriously  overcame  in 
the  beginning. 

Shame  be  to  us,  and  woe  be  to  us,  if  we  ever  endorse  a 
peace  which  does  not  remove  this  Terror  from  the  world. 

Morally  we  must  go  to  Belgium;  there  only  can  we  win 
absolution.  To  do  that  we  must  physically  go  no  one 
knows  whither.     And  we  will  not  ask. 


PEACE! 

PEACE   DID   NOT  COME   IN   1917. 

IT   MAY    NOT   COME   IN    1918. 

WHY  DID  IT  NOT  C0ME.3 


FROM  THE  AGENCY  BULLETIN  (N.Y.L.) 
DECEMBER  19,  1917 


HAT  does  peace  mean?  Does  it  mean 
merely  that  the  guns  have  ceased  to 
speak  and  nations  no  longer  devote  all 
their  powers  to  human  slaughter?  It 
means  that,  but  does  it  mean  only  that? 
If  peace  means  only  that  and  if  peace  is  the  thing 
supremely  to  be  desired,  then  the  United  States  and 
her  Allies  should  immediately  stop  short.  Peace  can 
be  had — that  kind  of  peace — almost  in  a  moment. 
That  sort  of  peace  could  have  been  secured  by  any  one 
of  the  Allied  Nations  any  time  since  July,  1914. 
Russia  seeks  it  now. 

Serbia  could  have  won  that  sort  of  peace — at  a  price! 
Belgium  could  have  gained  that  sort  of  peace — and 
lost  her  soul! 

France  could  have  saved  her  1,000,000  dead  sons  and 
all  her  ravished  daughters — at  a  price. 

Great  Britain  could  have  won  peace  and  probably 
what  at  the  time  might  have  seemed  some  material 
advantage  if  she  had  put  peace  above  her  plighted  word. 
We  could  have  still  kept  the  peace,  the  peace  that 
we  kept  long  enough,  if  we  had  not  put  self-respect 
higher  than  hatred  of  war. 

191 


192  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

When  should  peace  come  in  order  to  be  peace? 

When  Belgium  has  been  avenged — not  merely 
evacuated  by  the  Hun,  not  merely  physically  restored 
but  righteously  avenged.  There  is  a  wrath  that  is  the 
finest  expression  of  righteousness  and  peace  will  mean 
nothing  until  the  German  State  has  been  scorched  with 
its  hot  flames. 

When  France  has  been  rehabilitated.  France 
has  suffered  for  us  in  a  way  that  we  can  never  repay. 
France,  liberty-loving,  artistic,  heroic  France,  had  her 
home  next  to  the  bit  of  earth  where  was  born  some 
two  centuries  ago  a  man  called  Frederick  the  Great. 
In  his  soul  was  spawned  the  doctrine  of  force,  of 
power,  of  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings,  of  the  moral 
justification  of  war.  He  took  a  people  naturally  great 
— or  at  least  it  seemed  so  then — kindly,  gentle,  humane 
and  tractable,  and  taught  them  through  discipline  a 
morality  that  kills  the  soul.  He  began  the  erection  of 
a  Political  Juggernaut  that  started  out  on  August  1, 
1914,  to  crush  the  world.  It  has  already  killed  6,000,000 
men,  wounded  and  maimed  7,000,000  more,  and  shut 
up  other  millions  in  prison  camps.  It  has  bankrupted 
itself  and  its  associates  and  piled  up  a  mountain  of 
debt  which  the  world  will  not  discharge  in  a  century. 
It  has  turned  the  world  back  to  the  Middle  Ages  and 
still  stands  beaten  but  defiant  and  as  always,  remorseless. 

Peace  with  such  a  monster  cannot  be  made.  Let  us 
not  dodge  that.  Our  boys  can  die — they  are  djdng. 
Many  more  may  die.  We  fight,  but  not  merely  for 
peace.  We  could  easily  have  kept  that  formality. 
We  fight  for  justice,  for  self-respect.  We  fight  to  keep 
our  souls  in  the  same  realm  with  Belgium.  We  fight 
to  keep  the  world  from  becoming  a  jungle. 


Peace!  193 

Civilized,  self-respecting,  self-governed,  liberty-loving 
men  cannot  live  in  the  same  atmosphere  with  this 
Prussian  Monster. 

It  is  easy  to  think  that  perhaps  we  can.  It  is  easy 
to  think  that  it  is  all  a  long  way  off.  It  is  easy  to  think 
it  is  none  of  our  affair — that's  the  whisper  of  cowardice, 
of  fear,  and  of  the  secret — perhaps  paid — agent  of 
Germany. 

Christmas  and  the  Red  Cross  call  for  men. 

Christ  was  a  man!  He  might  have  escaped  the  cross 
if  He  had  sought  peace  at  any  price. 

Serbia,  Belgium,  Poland,  Armenia,  Roumania  and 
France  have  climbed  their  Calvaries  and  from  their 
crucified  bodies  there  shines  the  light  that  redeems  all 
races — the  light  that  tells  the  Hun  he  cannot  rule 
this  world  because  self-respect  still  survives. 

We  in  turn  are  now  facing  our  Calvary.  Let  us 
climb  it  without  flinching. 


A  NEW  CHARTER  OF  LIBERTY 


FROM  THE  MARCH  (1918) 
NUMBER  OF  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN  REVIEW 


UR  immediate  duty  is  to  \\dn  this  war. 
Since  the  days  just  preceding  the  Battle 
of  the  Marne  disasters  have  been  no 
thicker,  the  outlook  has  been  no  blacker 
than  now. 

The  thicker  the  disasters,  the  darker  the  outlook, 
the  more  imperative  that  duty  becomes. 

We  have  entered  the  conflict  because  we  could  stay 
out  no  longer  and  retain  our  self-respect.  We  have 
gone  over-seas  to  meet  a  monster  that  planned  later 
on  to  attack  us  in  our  own  homes.  We  fight  to  drive 
from  the  world  The  Terror  that  slays,  that  debauches, 
that  violates,  that  knows  no  honor,  and  has  no  com- 
passion; but  we  also  fight  in  order  that,  for  similar 
reasons,  the  world  may  never  have  to  fight  again.  If 
this  is  to  be  a  place  fit  for  habitation  by  civilized  men, 
if  it  is  to  be  a  place  in  which  hope  and  ambition  and 
unselfishness  and  human  affection  are  to  flourish,  we 
must  win  the  war,  and  then  make  that  victory  effec- 
tive through  a  change  in  the  fundamental  relations 
between  democratic  states. 

With  \'ictory  we  shall  face  an  unprecedented  crisis, 
out  of  which  a  new  world  should  be  born — a  world 
splendidly  worth  its  fearful  cost. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  195 

In  that  crisis,  and  fighting  against  that  rebirth,  will 
lie  the  deadly  force  of  inertia,  the  paralyzing  influence 
of  ancient  prejudices  and  fears,  and  a  natural  longing 
for  the  restoration  of  the  old  conditions. 

Restoration  of  the  status  quo  between  the  democra- 
cies of  the  world,  after  Germany  has  been  crushed, 
means  defeat;  it  means  defeat  not  because  the  old 
world  will  then  be  broken  financially  and  shattered 
morally,  but  because  that  new  world  cannot  be  born 
under  the  old  conditions. 

When  this  war  began  we  were  utterly  unprepared  to 
do  our  plain  duty.  We  must  not  face  the  crisis  that 
will  lie  in  after-war  conditions  still  totally  unprepared. 

A  comprehensive  post-bellum  program,  thought  out 
in  advance  and  agreed  to  in  principle  by  the  AUies,  is 
almost  as  important  as  victory  itself. 

To  destroy  this  German  Terror  is  necessary,  but 
that  does  not  reflect  our  full  purpose.  The  conditions 
out  of  which  this  Terror  was  born,  unchanged,  will 
later  produce  others  hke  it,  possibly  worse.  We  fight 
not  only  to  crush  or  change  Germany,  but  so  to  change 
the  fundamentals  of  civilization  that  they  shall  no 
longer  naturally  breed  in  part  at  least  the  ideals  which 
have  made  Germany  the  Monster  that  she  is. 

Neither  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  Latin,  the  Jap  nor  the 
Slav  can  understand  the  remorseless,  senseless,  brutish 
savagery  of  the  German.  The  chaos,  the  lawlessness 
of  international  relations  excuse  and  explain  in  part 
the  German  attitude,  but  they  do  not  explain  or  excuse 
the  monstrous  crimes  which  beginning  with  Germany's 
self-violated  honor  have  proceeded  through  thickening 
horrors  to  Ambassador  Luxburg  and  his  advice  to  sink 


196  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  ship  of  friendly  powers  but  to  do  it  in  such  a  way 
as  to  leave  no  trace. 

The  only  immediate  answer  to  these  inhuman  deeds 
lies  in  the  throat  of  cannon  and  machine  guns;  no 
other  answer  is  possible. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  problem  which  will 
assert  itself,  as  we  hope,  at  no  distant  date.  The  great 
majority  of  the  peoples  of  the  world  is  neither  insane 
with  egotism  nor  drunk  with  the  lust  of  power.  The 
majority  of  the  world  is  to-day  genuinelj^  democratic- 
democratic  not  merely  in  its  forms  of  governments, 
but  democratic  in  its  sympathies,  in  its  willingness  to 
concede  to  others  the  rights  it  demands  for  itself. 
That  majority  was  badly  organized  when  this  war 
began;  it  was  really  so  organized  as  to  invite  war.  It 
was  democratic  within  the  frontiers  of  those  civic  enti- 
ties which  we  call  Republics,  but  in  the  relations  be- 
tween those  units  it  was  autocratic.  Those  relations 
must  be  changed;  they  must  be  reorganized.  This 
reorganization  will  include  Germany  if  it  then  appears 
that  the  word  of  a  German  in  Germany  can  be  taken  for 
anything,  if  it  then  appears  that  as  a  people  they  have 
acquired  a  conscience ;  otherwise  the  German  State  must 
remain  the  Pariah  amongst  nations  that  it  is  to-day. 

Outside  the  incomprehensible  savagery  exhibited  by 
Germany,  I  see  little  in  her  attitude  toward  other 
nations  or  in  her  purposes  as  a  sovereignty  that  is 
really  illogical  or  inconsistent  with  the  present  laws 
governing  national  existence.  It  is  even  possible  to 
see  how  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty, 
which  was  and  still  is  the  basis  of  world  relations, 
tended  and  tends  to  develop  the  amazing  brutalities  of 
the  German  people. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  197 

Each  of  the  great  sovereignties  assumes  that  it  is 
uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable  by  any  other  state, 
that  in  the  last  analysis  it  is  itself  the  law.  This  is  a 
reversion  to  a  primal  instinct.  It  created  as  many 
supreme  authorities  in  this  little  world  as  there  are 
great  sovereignties.  It  erected  impenetrable  barriers, 
barriers  called  frontiers,  between  the  sons  of  men.  It 
made  civilization  a  powder  magazine.  On  the  first  of 
August,  1914,  the  magazine  blew  up. 

Such  havdng  been  the  methods  of  unconditioned 
sovereignty  before  the  war  and  such  its  fruits,  what 
will  happen  if  it  is  continued  unmodified  after  the  war? 

War  will  happen,  war,  again  and  again,  with  the 
ultimate  dominance  of  one  great  military  power. 

It  was  as  certain  as  the  law  of  gravitation  that  both 
soon  and  late  sovereignty  must  fight  with  sovereignty 
and  that  the  strong  only  could  survive.  The  \dolent 
change  in  the  relations  between  sovereignties  that  fol- 
lowed the  marvels  of  steam  and  electricity  simply 
hastened  the  day  when  the  fight  was  to  begin  and 
increased  its  horrors.  It  was  logical — indeed  who  shall 
now  say  it  was  not  necessary? — for  each  sovereignty 
to  prepare  for  that  day.  Substantially  all  sovereign- 
ties except  our  own  did  prepare.  Germany  simply  saw 
a  little  more  clearly  than  others  or  realized  with  more 
ruthlessness  than  others  what  the  situation  meant  and 
made  corresponding  preparation.  It  was  logical,  al- 
though entirely  unmoral,  for  any  sovereignty  to  build 
up  out  of  this  condition  a  fiction  of  superiority  as 
Germany  did.  The  sovereignty  that  was  perfectly 
logical,  and  without  moral  sense  could  well  argue,  as 
Germany  did: 


198  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

"This  condition  means  war,  there  is  no  escape  from  it; 

"Ultimately  only  one  great  power  can  survive; 

"The  power  that  survives  will  be  the  one  that  has 
the  will  to  survive; 

"That  will  is  God-given,  it  was  born  of  the  plans  of 
the  Creator;  therefore, 

"Germany  ha\ang  that  will  is  chosen  of  God  to  rule 
the  world;  hence 

"It  becomes  our  duty,  in  order  to  carry  out  the 
Divine  Purpose,  not  only  to  equip  ourselves  by 
every  possible  means,  but  to  spy  on  other  sover- 
eignties in  times  of  peace,  to  weaken  them  by  any 
possible  process,  to  suborn  their  pubhc  officers,  to 
bribe  their  generals,  to  buy  their  newspapers,  to 
pervert  their  pubhc  opinion; 

"Moreover  it  becomes  our  duty  in  order  to  obey  the 
Divine  AYill  to  strike  whenever  it  seems  that  we 
are  best  prepared  to  strike  and  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  least  prepared  to  defend  itself;  and 

"As  this  will  be  the  Supreme  Fight,  the  one  that  is 
to  establish  God's  purpose  on  the  earth  we  shall  be 
justified  in  hesitating  at  nothing,  we  shall  have 
warrant  for  any  act  that  will  terrify — the  end  will 
justify  the  means." 

In  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty,  except  as  it  may  be 
qualified  by  the  principles  of  democracy,  there  is  no 
more  morality  than  there  is  in  the  law  of  the  jungle. 

The  logic  of  Germany  was  born  of  the  morality  of 
that  Doctrine,  and  therefore,  always  under  pressure 
from  Germany,  we  had  for  years  before  this  war  began 
constantly  increasing  armament  by  land  and  sea,  the 
so-called  "balance  of  power"  in  Europe,  and  the  inter- 
national   chaos    of    1914.     In    that    chaos    Germany 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  199 

thought  she  saw  her  opportunit3\  She  knew  herself 
prepared.  Her  spies  told  her  that  France  was  un- 
ready. She  knew  that  the  Government  of  Russia  was 
rotten,  that  she  could  suborn  Russia's  rulers,  bribe  her 
generals,  and  debauch  her  public  opinion.  She  be- 
lieved that  Great  Britain  was  decadent  and  would 
enter  on  no  quixotic  enterprise.  She  assumed  that 
Italy  would  remain  in  the  Dreibund.  She  expected 
us  to  become  involved  only  after  she  had  crushed 
Europe.  It  seemed  to  be  "The  Day".  It  would  have 
been  but  for  the  glorious  soul  of  Belgium,  the  matchless 
courage  of  France,  and  that  gray,  grim,  silent  line  of 
ships  which  rests  somewhere  in  the  North  Sea. 

For  years  Germany's  preparation  had  been  obvious, 
its  purpose  confessed,  the  crisis  inevitable.  But  the 
Democracies  of  the  world  apparently  could  not  see  the 
obvious,  they  preferred  to  ignore  Germany's  brazenly 
confessed  purpose.  Thej'  adhered  to  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty  and  at  the  same  time  they  flinched  from 
the  full  measure  of  its  fearful  logic.  They  preserved 
their  frontiers,  they  waged  economic  wars  on  each 
other  through  tariffs,  but  they  did  after  a  fashion 
recognize  the  rights  of  other  peoples  and  they  did  not 
let  the  lust  for  power  utterly  consume  their  souls. 
They  built  their  railroads,  for  example,  for  commerce 
and  not  for  war.  They  risked  their  very  existence,  as 
we  now  see,  by  not  being  entirely  logical, — and  they 
have  very  nearly  paid  the  price  of  their  inconsistency. 
It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  democracies  of  the  world 
must  not  permit  that  crisis  to  arise  again.  To  pre- 
vent that  they  must  either  deny  their  own  faith  and 
become  armed  camps  or  they  must  formulate  a  post- 
bellum  plan  which  will  remove  that  monstrous  logic 


200  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

from  the  democratic  world,  and  they  should  formulate 
that  plan  now. 

Assume  that  Germany  is  so  changed  in  the  not  dis- 
tant future  that  civilized  men  can  deal  with  her,  or  that 
she  is  so  crushed  that  she  can  be  ignored,  what  then? 

Are  we  still  to  follow  the  old  program?  Can  the 
world  be  reorganized  for  peace  on  those  lines?  It 
never  has  been.  For  some  centuries  now  Peace  in 
Europe  has  been  merely  a  period  of  preparation  for 
the  next  war.  Is  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sov- 
ereignty to  be  preserved  with  all  its  hideous  signifi- 
cance for  the  future?  If  so,  what  shall  we  have  gained 
by  victory?     Shall  we  have  gained  anything? 

At  the  very  threshold  of  all  post-bellum  discussion 
this  doctrine  will  stand  and  thrust  its  bloody  history 
into  our  councils.  We  cannot  ignore  it.  We  dare 
not  palter  with  it.  What  are  we  to  do  with  it?  It 
cannot  as  yet  be  utterly  abolished.  Nationahty  with 
all  its  crimes  was  as  inevitable  a  step  in  the  evolution 
of  government  as  mammals  were  in  the  evolution  of 
man.  It  has  played  a  great  part,  it  must  still  play  a 
great  part,  but  its  role  hereafter  in  the  democratic 
world  must  not  be  the  leading  part;  humanity  must 
come  first. 

In  general  terms  what  does  that  involve?  It  will 
not  be  easy  to  modify  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  or 
to  indicate  a  better  plan;  but  whether  the  task  be  easy 
or  difficult,  it  is  now  time — ignoring  details — to  name 
certain  principles  which  must  be  adhered  to  in  the 
future  relations  of  democracies  if  the  \'ictory  that  mil 
cost  so  much  is  not  after  all  to  be  frittered  away.  If 
the  Allies  having  crushed  Germany  continue  relations 
between  themselves  such  that  in  a  generation  or  two 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  201 

it  will  be  necessary  for  them  to  turn  and  crush  each 
other,  what  will  victory  in  this  conflict  have  been  worth? 

Let  us  put  it  as  baldly  and  as  offensively  as  possible. 

The  sovereignty  of  the  United  States  as  between 
itself  and  the  democracies,  great  and  small,  with  which 
we  should  be  federated  at  the  close  of  this  war  must 
then  be  qualified.  The  sovereignty  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  Italy  and  all  the  democratic  peoples  included 
in  that  federation  must  be  qualified  in  the  same  way. 

That  is  the  medicine  the  democracies  of  the  world 
must  ultimately  take.  Few  people  ever  like  their  first 
whiff  of  it.  Our  forefathers  did  not  like  it,  but  it  was 
good  for  them  and  they  took  it. 

Apart  from  the  necessity  for  such  action  between 
democracies  after  the  war  we  are  already  committed 
to  the  principle;  so  is  Great  Britain. 

Great  Britain  has  said  that  she  fights,  and  we  have 
said  that  we  fight  to  make  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
weak  peoples  and  small  states  as  secure  against  aggres- 
sion in  the  future  as  are  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
great  states.  Even  Germany  has  professed  that  pur- 
pose, although  her  first  act  in  this  war  was  to  \'iolate 
Belgium,  and  the  first  act  of  her  principal  ally  was  to 
attack  a  small  state.  President  Wilson  in  his  call  for 
a  declaration  of  war  said  we  must  have  a  partnership 
of  democratic  nations,  a  league  of  honor,  a  partnership 
of  opinion.  "Partnership"  is  a  strong  word,  but  it  is 
not  quite  strong  enough.  A  "league  of  honor"  would 
be  fine — we  have  had  such  things  in  the  world  before 
— but  it  will  not  solve  this  problem.  A  joinder  of 
democratic  states  in  which  weak  peoples  and  small 
states  are  to  be  fully  protected  must  rest  on  clearly 
defined  rights,  and  not  on  privileges  granted  by  the 

14 


202  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

grace  of  more  powerful  states.  However  sincere  the 
great  states  in  a  league  or  partnership  might  be  when 
it  was  formed,  however  perfectly  they  might  intend 
then  to  respect  the  rights  of  small  states,  the  prece- 
dents of  history  show  clearly  that  they  cannot  be 
trusted  to  that  extent,  neither  can  they  long  be  trusted 
to  keep  the  peace  between  themselves.  The  history 
of  the  Thirteen  States  between  the  Peace  of  Paris  and 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  shows  what  would 
happen.  Small  states  in  such  an  enterprise  must  have 
as  definite  a  place,  their  rights  must  be  as  clearly 
assured,  as  are  the  rights  and  pri\'ileges  of  the  small 
states  in  the  Federal  Union.  Safety  that  rests  on 
grace  or  favor  will  not  do.  The  union  of  democratic 
states  after  this  war,  to  be  effective,  must  be  as  indis- 
soluble as  the  Federal  Union  itself. 

Therefore  out  of  the  democracies  of  the  world  there 
must  be  created,  not  a  League  of  nations,  not  a 
Partnership  between  states,  but,  by  federation,  a  new 
State,  a  new  Power,  whose  authority  shall  be  drawn 
directly  from  the  people — just  as  the  authority  of  our 
Federal  Government  is  drawn  from  the  people  and  not 
from  the  states  as  such.  The  structure  of  that  great 
new  Power  should  rest  on  these  principles:  It  should 
have  the  power  to  tax;  it  should  act  directly  on  the 
individual;  it  should  have  a  bicameral  legislature;  it 
probably  should  have  the  three  great  divisions  of  our 
Federal  Plan — Executive,  Legislative  and  Judicial ;  and, 
most  important  of  all,  it  should  have  a  great  Court 
whose  verdicts,  within  fundamental  limitations  shall  be 
conclusive  on  all  the  States  so  federated. 

These  five  great  principles  were  never  incorporated 
into  the  government  of  federated  states  until  our  Con- 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  203 

stitution  was  adopted  and  ours  is  the  first  successful 
government  in  the  world's  history  based  on  federated 
states. 

Certain  objections  will  immediately  arise  in  the  minds 
of  all  patriotic  men.  All  such  objections — except  per- 
haps those  that  spring  out  of  the  problems  of  lan- 
guage— were  raised  at  Poughkeepsie  in  the  summer  of 
1788  and  were  beaten  to  death  by  the  logic  and  elo- 
quence of  Alexander  Hamilton;  they  were  raised  that 
same  summer  at  Richmond  by  Patrick  Henry  and 
were  conclusively  answered  by  John  Marshall  and 
James  Madison.  By  the  power  of  superb  leadership 
the  Federal  Constitution  was  adopted.  And  what  has 
it  wrought?    What  has  it  not  wrought? 

In  the  beginning  it  created  a  responsible  State  out 
of  political  and  commercial  chaos. 

It  made  this  land  the  dream  and  the  hope  of  the 
plain  people  of  all  the  earth. 

It  gave  rule  by  the  people  a  new  significance  and 
power. 

Its  greatest  achievement  is  one  we  as  yet  only  dimly 
comprehend;  it  created  a  new  type  of  man. 

The  severest  mental  test  that  free  men  were  ever 
triumphant  under  was  the  adoption  of  our  Constitu- 
tion. The  severest  civic  test  in  which  free  men  have 
triumphed  was  in  our  Civil  War.  The  severest  test 
of  their  capacity  as  statesmen  ever  faced  by  free  men 
was  formulated  in  President  Wilson's  call  for  men  on 
April  2,  1917.  That  was  a  test  indeed.  How  big  was 
our  average  citizen?  The  President  assumed  almost 
a  super-man.  How  broad  was  his  vision?  The  Presi- 
dent assumed  that  it  was  as  wide  as  the  world.  Did 
he  understand  the  real  meaning  of  this  war?     Some  of 


204  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

our  so-called  great  men  did  not  understand  it  then  and 
some  of  them  apparently  do  not  understand  it  now. 
Would  this  plain,  peace-lo\'ing  democrat  give  up  his 
property,  his  business,  his  sons,  his  daughters,  in  a 
contest  that  seemed  almost  at  the  other  end  of  the 
earth?  The  splendid  boys,  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh 
of  our  flesh,  who  without  a  word  of  complaint  have 
given  up  their  careers  in  life  and  are  now  gathering  in 
our  training  camps  and  on  our  ships,  the  millions  of 
others  waiting  their  turn,  the  Liberty  Loans,  the  quick 
response  from  all  who  can  anywhere  serve  give  the 
President  his  answer. 

American  citizens,  self-governed,  free,  are  now  rising 
to  heights  never  before  trod  by  free  men.  They  are 
fighting  in  another  hemisphere  to  help  save  the  liber- 
ties of  mankind.  Having  done  that,  it  follows  that 
the  work  will  be  but  half  done  unless  we  formulate  and 
support  a  program  by  which  those  Uberties  so  dearly 
preserved  may  certainly  be  perpetuated. 

That  calls  for  a  new  order,  for  a  new  world,  for  a  new 
and  a  greater  Charter  of  Liberty.  Under  that  charter 
must  ultimately  come  all  the  truly  democratic  and 
self-governed  peoples  of  the  world.  If  we  are  to  have 
peace,  then  between  these  peoples  there  must  be  no 
more  questions  of  honor — the  international  code  duello 
is  as  much  an  anachronism  as  the  individual  code  duello 
and  it  must  go.  If  we  are  to  have  peace,  then  be- 
tween these  peoples  there  must  be  no  more  non- 
justiciable questions  and  therefore  we  shall  need  no 
Councils  of  Concihation  and  no  Arbitral  Tribunals, 
but  we  shall  need  that  great  Court  whose  decrees 
under  the  hmitations  of  that  charter  shall  be  binding 
on  all. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  205 

To  achieve  that  or  anything  approaching  it,  the  old 
order  must  be  abandoned. 

This  thought,  the  necessity  of  an  adequate  post- 
bellum  plan,  is  probably  foremost  in  the  minds  of  all 
the  thinkers  of  the  democratic  world.  It  has  already 
assumed  a  variety  of  forms.  It  has  been  nobly  phrased 
by  President  Wilson.  It  has  been  mouthed  by  the 
German  autocracy.  Societies  have  been  organized 
here  and  in  Europe  to  forward  plans  more  or  less 
imperfectly  thought  out. 

The  League  to  Enforce  Peace  has  attracted  most 
attention.  In  substance  that  organization  has  been 
endorsed  very  widely.  But  the  League  does  not  pro- 
pose really  to  change  the  basis  of  international  rela- 
tions, it  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  difficulty.  It 
proposes  to  use  both  its  military  and  economic  forces 
against  any  member  that  attacks  another  member, 
not  having  first  submitted  the  questions  at  issue  to  the 
Judicial  Tribunal  of  the  League  or  to  its  Council  of 
Conciliation. 

If  such  differences  are  first  submitted  and  the  parties 
are  still  dissatisfied  they  may  then  fight  without  inter- 
ference by  the  League,  or  if  one  is  dissatisfied  pre- 
sumably it  may  then  attack  the  other. 

Under  this  plan  questions  of  honor  do  not  dis- 
appear; sovereignty  is  shorn  of  little  of  its  arrogance; 
no  effective  process  by  which  law  shall  take  the  place 
of  force  in  international  relations  is  proposed. 

And  yet  the  League  has  done  and  is  doing  fine  work. 
It  is  leading  the  world  up  to  the  real  problem.  Let  us 
remember  that  the  resolution  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress which  called  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of  1787 
did  not  direct  the  delegates  to  draft  a  new  Constitu- 


206  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

tion;  no  state  gave  its  delegates  any  such  authority. 
All  that  Convention  was  expected  to  do  was  to  formu- 
late and  submit  amendments  to  the  old  and  impotent 
Articles  of  Confederation. 

But  when  the  great  men  who  made  up  that  body  met 
they  tore  up  their  instructions;  under  the  inspiration 
of  Washington's  opening  address  they  erected  a  new 
standard  and,  in  his  literal  words  left  the  issue  "with 
God".  If  it  had  been  announced  that  the  Convention 
of  1787  would  propose  the  abandonment  of  the  Con- 
federation, and  would  write  a  new  Constitution — there 
would  have  been  no  Convention,  no  Constitution  then 
and  probably  no  United  States  of  America  now. 

The  Hague  Tribunal  was  at  best  only  a  Confedera- 
tion, feebler  than  ours;  so  feeble  indeed  that  it  never 
really  accomplished  any  great  thing.  It  undertook  to 
create  an  International  Court  but  failed  because  of 
inherent  impotence.  It  was  impotent  because  its  units 
were  sovereignties  and,  in  the  last  analysis,  sovereign- 
ties can  obey  no  law  but  their  own. 

Let  there  be  no  mistake.  When  \ictory  comes  we 
cannot  go  back  to  any  Hague  Tribunal;  that  was  a 
device  to  meet  conditions  in  a  barbaric  age.  We  shall 
then  have  marched  far  past  that.  We  shall  be  within 
reach  of  a  victory  through  which  we  can  really  utihze 
Victory.  We  can  win  that  larger  \dctory,  we  can 
banish  international  anarchy  and  the  international  code 
duello  if  we  tear  up  our  instructions  as  our  forefathers 
did,  erect  a  new  standard  and  fight  in  a  world  arena 
for  the  ideals  of  Hamilton  and  Washington. 

President  Wilson  in  his  message  of  December  3,  1917, 
raised  that  standard  and  rallied  the  democracies  of  the 
world  with  words  of  rare  courage.     After  referring  to 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  207 

the  "partnership  of  nations  which  must  henceforth 
guarantee  the  world's  peace",  he  said: 

"That  partnership  must  be  a  partnership  of 
peoples,  not  a  mere  partnership  of  Govern- 
ments." 

Into  that  sentence  the  President  has  compressed 
the  whole  philosophy  of  our  Federal  Government,  the 
whole  philosophy  of  world  democracy,  the  only  process 
by  which  we  can  possibly  hope  to  achieve  permanent 
peace. 

In  his  message  of  January  8th,  in  Article  III  of  his 
program  he  calls  for  the  "removal  as  far  as  possible  of 
all  economic  barriers"  between  the  nations  associating 
themselves  to  maintain  peace.  A  partnership  of  peo- 
ples as  distinguished  from  a  mere  partnership  of  govern- 
ments with  economic  barriers  removed  means  Federa- 
tion and  nothing  less. 

Sir  Frederick  Smith,  Attorney  General  of  Great 
Britain,  speaking  recently  before  the  New  York  State 
Bar  Association,  referred  to  the  difficulties  which  would 
attend  the  achievement  of  the  President's  program 
and  said  that  those  difficulties  by  swiftly  and  unex- 
pectedly merging  would  overwhelm  the  proposal,  be- 
cause they  are  so  stupendous  in  their  aggregate  weight. 
If  a  mere  league  of  sovereignties,  of  governments  is  to 
be  entered  into,  and  not  a  Partnership  of  Peoples,  Sir 
Frederick  is  right.  The  difficulties  would  overwhelm 
the  proposal.  But  if  the  responsible  democracies  of 
the  world  should  federate,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  the 
difficulties  pointed  out  by  this  distinguished  lawyer, 
the  very  difficulties  that  made  both  our  Confederation 
and  the  Hague  Tribunal  impotent,  would  rapidly  dis- 


208  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

appear.  They  would  disappear  because  they  all,  or 
substantially  all,  spring  out  of  conditions  that  exist 
under  a  partnership  of  governments  but  do  not  exist 
under  a  partnership  of  peoples. 

To  illustrate:  Connecticut  levied  a  tax  on  imports 
from  Massachusetts  under  the  Confederation,  as  she 
had  a  right  to  do.  She  was  acting  as  a  sovereignty. 
All  the  thirteen  States  did  similar  things,  as  they 
had  a  right  to  do.  Difficulties  arose;  chaos  followed; 
civil  war  was  narrowly  averted.  But  when  the  Con- 
federation became  a  Federation,  when  the  partnership 
between  thirteen  governments  became  a  partnership 
of  peoples,  these  "rights"  disappeared  and  most  of  the 
difficulties  went  with  them. 

With  the  lapse  of  time  we  more  and  more  realize 
what  a  crisis  in  the  development  of  democracy  the 
Convention  in  Independence  Hall  in  1787  was.  Sup- 
pose it  had  failed!  Suppose  it  had  followed  instruc- 
tions. Suppose  Washington  and  Hamilton  and  ]\Iadi- 
son  and  Franklin  had  listened  to  the  fears  and  had 
been  influenced  by  the  prejudices  of  the  several  states. 
Suppose  that  later  on  Chnton  and  not  Hamilton  had 
won  in  *New  York  and  that  New  York  had  stayed 
out  of  the  Union.  Suppose  that  Patrick  Henry  and 
not  John  Marshall  had  won  in  Virginia  and  that 
** Virginia  had  stayed  out  of  the  Union.  Can  we 
measure  the  calamity-?  Would  Yorktown,  where  our 
fathers  had  won  the  identical  victory  we  are  now 
sending  our  boys  to  Europe  to  win,  have  had  any 

*0n  the  decisive  ballot  57  votes  were  cast;  30  for,  27  against,  Gov- 
ernor Clinton  not  voting.  The  oflBcial  majority  for  the  Constitution 
was  3;  the  actual  majority  was  2. 

**The  majority  in  Virginia  was  10;  the  ballots  cast  totaled  168. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  209 

further  meaning  for  them?     Would  it  have  any  mean- 
ing for  us  now? 

Nothing  is  more  certain  than  the  pohtical  destruc- 
tion of  the  Thirteen  States  if  the  Federal  Constitution 
had  failed  of  adoption. 

Nothing  is  more  certain  than  a  return  to  confusion, 
chaos  and  war,  and  an  ultimate  recrudescence  of 
autocracy  in  some  form,  if  democracy  triumphant  does 
not  redeem  itself,  does  not  abandon  the  old  order  and 
federate. 

None  of  the  Thirteen  States  lost  any  dignity  or 
liberty  or  endangered  its  integrity  by  entering  the 
Federal  Union.  No  democratic  state  would  lose  any 
dignity  or  Uberty  or  imperil  its  integrity  by  entering 
such  a  Federation. 

On  the  contrary,  each  of  the  Thirteen  States  took  on 
added  power  and  dignity  and  insured  its  integrity  by 
surrendering  its  separate  sovereignty. 

The  surrender  of  separate  sovereignty  is  the  only 
process  by  which  the  democratic  States  of  the  world 
can  severally  insure  their  continued  integrity. 

War  between  the  states  of  this  Union — grown  from 
thirteen  to  forty-eight — is  now"  unthinkable.  War  be- 
tween the  democratic  states  of  the  world  must  be  made 
equally  unthinkable,  and  that  cannot  be  achieved 
while  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty  survives. 

In  the  history  of  this  country  from  1783  to  1789  we 
have  the  history  of  a  world  democracy,  in  microcosm, 
successfully  worked  out  against  problems  as  complex 
as  any  which  will  exist  at  the  close  of  this  war.  Seek- 
ing a  federation  of  democratic  states  after  we  have 
achieved  victory  in  battle  we  shall  not  be  testing  out  a 
theory,  we  shall  be  following  historic  precedents.     To 


210  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  truth  of  that,  the  flag  that  floats  over  us  bears 
eloquent  witness.  Its  thirteen  stars  have  become 
forty-eight,  and  in  that  development  no  star  was  lost — 
not  even  when  our  foundations  were  re-tested  and 
re-estabhshed  by  the  bloody  verdicts  of  a  great  Civil  War, 
In  planning  to  destroy  democracy  Germany  has 
unwittingly  created  an  opportunity  through  which  the 
establishment  of  world  democracy  may  be  advanced 
by  centuries  but  by  this  very  act  she  has  raised  supreme 
issues  which  must  be  met  and  met  now: 

1st.  Are  democracies  strong  enough  to  sustain 
themselves?  Can  they  meet  and  hurl  back 
the  desperate,  physical  challenge  of  auto- 
cracy? 

2d.  Can  they  grasp  and  utiUze  the  opportunity 
which  victory  will  bring? 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  is  still  incomplete, 
largely  because  the  Allies  have  fought  as  separate 
sovereignties,  as  partners,  as  a  confederation,  and  not 
as  a  unit  with  one  common  and  over-mastering  pur- 
pose. This  method  has  been  so  ineffective  and  so 
costly  that  the  Prime  Minister  of  England  and  the 
Premier  of  France  lately  joined  in  utterances  which 
point  out  that  weakness  with  brutal  frankness.  Not 
unnaturally,  indeed  almost  inevitably,  the  AUies  are 
repeating  the  confusion  and  the  follies  of  the  Thirteen 
States  in  our  Revolution.  Worse  than  that.  The 
Thirteen  States  did  unite  in  one  supremely  important 
thing:  they  made  George  Washington  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  all  their  armies.  The  .lilies  have  failed  as 
yet  to  unite  under  a  Common  Leader  in  any  department 
of  the  war. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  211 

The  test  of  the  second  question — Can  the  Allies 
wisely  utiUze  \dctory? — will  follow  hard  on  the  heels 
of  victory.  It  will  not  wait  long  for  a  reply.  If  the 
Allied  Nations  driven  together  by  the  centripetal  force 
of  war  co-operate  with  difficulty,  what  will  happen 
when  that  unifying  force  is  withdrawn?  What  hap- 
pened after  our  liberties  were  won  in  1783,  when  the 
common  peril  had  been  abated?  A  period  of  weak- 
ness, of  confusion  and  of  folly  unbelievable. 

Liberty  was  saved  and  order  restored  only  when  the 
Thirteen  States  swallowed  their  false  pride  and  gave 
up  the  barbaric  right  of  separate  sovereignty.  The 
lesson  is  plain. 

The  next  great  question  will  be — indeed  it  now 
presses — to  what  extent  have  the  democracies  of  the 
world  learned  that  lesson?  Ob\dously  they  have  not 
learned  it  for  war.  The  English  Premier  almost  im- 
periled his  seat  by  his  recent  declaration  in  favor  of  a 
War  Council  of  the  Allies.  The  mere  suggestion  that 
an  Enghsh  Army  might  be  directed  by  a  body  not 
entirely  British  immediately  aroused  the  barbaric  in- 
stincts of  sovereignty  and  set  all  the  politicians  upon 
the  Premier's  back.  The  people,  however,  sustained 
him.  May  not  that  circumstance  and  the  clear  call 
for  unity  of  action  recently  issued  by  President  Wilson 
be  an  augury  that  with  victory  democracy  will  achieve 
speedily  what  it  took  us  eighty-two  years  to  accom- 
plish? Our  fathers  faced  the  problem  when  the  Peace 
of  Paris  was  signed  in  1783;  we  completed  the  task  at 
Appomattox  in  18G5. 

We  shall  indulge  in  sheer  sophistry  if  we  attempt  to 
argue  that  the  Allies'  problem  will  be  essentially  dif- 


212  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

ferent  from  the  one  we  have  solved  in  this  hemisphere. 
It  will  be  exactly  the  same  problem. 

It  is  therefore  time,  high  time,  ignoring  details,  to 
examine  fundamentals,  to  formulate  principles,  to  ad- 
mit facts,  to  recognize  unavoidable  conclusions — as  the 
basis  of  post-bellum  discussions. 

On  these  four  Principles  all  sound  discussion  must  rest : 
First  Principle.        All  men  are  created  equal. 

Sovereignty  has  compelled  us  practically  to  deny  the 
universahty  of  that  principle. 

Governmentally  we  assert  that  only  Americans  are 
created  equal. 

Second  Principle.  All  men  are  endowed  by  the  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights. 

Our  instinctive  desire  to  apply  this  principle  beyond 
our  own  frontiers  explains  largely  why  we  were  so 
pitifully  unprepared  when  we  entered  this  war. 

Third  Principle.  Sovereignty  is  an  attribute  of  the  in- 
dividual and  not  inherently  an  attri- 
bute of  the  state. 

That  is  the  very  essence  of  democracy,  and  is  at 
eternal  war  with  all  frontiers. 

Fourth  Principle.  States  are  instrumentalities  and  not 
ends. 

Until  that  principle  is  recognized  and  enforced  there 
can  be  no  lasting  peace. 

These  three  indisputable  Facts  must  be  recognized 
in  any  effective  discussion: 

First  Fact.  None  of  these  four  principles,  which  express 
universal  truths,  has  yet  been  tested — except 
between  the  States  in  this  Republic — beyond  the 
limits  set  by  national  frontiers ;  they  have  other- 
wise never  had  any  but  a  local  application. 


A  New  Charter  of  Liberty  213 

Second  Fact.  To  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy  and 
democracy  safe  for  the  world  these  principles 
must  everywhere  be  applied,  BETWEEN  dem- 
ocracies as  well  as  WITHIN  democracies. 

Third  Fact.  The  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sovereignty 
is  the  force  that  has  prevented  such  an  applica- 
tion of  these  universal  truths. 

Therefore  as  between  democracies  the  doctrine  of  uncon- 
ditioned sovereignty  must  be  abolished. 

It  is  not  too  early  for  the  AUies  to  agree  on  these 
principles  as  the  basis  of  their  post-bellum  plan. 

It  is  not  too  early  for  them  to  recognize  the  truth 
of  these  facts. 

It  is  not  too  early  to  admit  the  great  conclusion  that 
follows  from  those  principles  and  facts. 

But  democracy  can  apply  that  conclusion  only  if 
her  hands  are  clean.  There  can  be  no  federation  of 
democracies  after  peace  comes  if  that  peace  is  a  cow- 
ardly compromise  with  criminals.  First  there  must  be 
bitter  repentance  in  Germany — either  through  a  re- 
awakening or  through  sheer  physical  defeat. 

Cities  cannot  compromise  with  gunmen  and  burglars 
and  remain  cities :  democracies  cannot  compromise  with 
forces  that  deny  the  very  fundamentals  of  democratic 
faith  and  remain  democracies,  and  the  Allies  can  never 
compromise  with  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the  Hapsburgs. 

We  fight  to  estabhsh  liberty,  to  restore  the  good 
order  of  the  world ;  but  good  order  will  not  be  restored, 
liberty  will  not  be  established,  merely  by  defeating 
Germany.  There  can  be  no  permanent  world  good 
order  if  the  relations  between  the  nations  now  allied 
are  continued  after  the  war  as  they  were  before  the 


214  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

war.     If  this  conflict  has  not  taught  us  that,  it  hasn't 
taught  us  anything. 

Autocracy  was  halted  at  the  Marne.  It  was  de- 
feated at  Verdun.  It  will  be  crushed  only  in  Berlin. 
Its  menace  will  be  ended  when  triumphant  democracy 
issues,  and  its  units  adopt  a  new  Charter  of  Liberty, 
based  on  the  identical  surrender  made  by  the  Thirteen 
States  when  they  adopted  the  fundamental  law  of  this 
Republic.  By  no  other  process  can  a  peace  be  organ- 
ized which  shall  be  worth  the  crushing  cost  of  this 
conflict. 


WOODROW  WILSON  AND 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SOVEREIGNTY 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE 

LIFE  UNDERWRITERS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 

HOTEL  ASTOR.  NEW  YORK,  SEPTEMBER  5,  1918 


F  IN  the  Summer  of  1913  the  people  of 
iJ^  France  had  reported  that  one  of  the  great 
Q  Pterodactyls  of  the  Mesozoic  period  had 
suddenly  winged  its  reptilian  way  over  the 
borders  of    that   Republic,  the   rest  of   the 


world  would  have  smiled,  shrugged  its  shoulders  and 
said  that  the  excitable  French  were  "seeing  things". 

If  in  the  summer  of  1914  the  people  of  Belgium  had 
reported  that  a  group  of  Dinosaurs  had  suddenly  ap- 
peared at  the  gates  of  that  Kingdom  and  had  begun 
to  kill  as  reptiles  killed  when  reptiles  ruled  the  earth, 
the  world  would  again  have  shrugged  its  shoulders  and 
gone  about  its  business. 

If  in  the  Spring  of  1915  we  had  been  told  that  a 
Plesiosaur,  the  Saurian  that  swam  in  the  sea  in  the 
age  of  Reptiles,  had  suddenly  reared  its  awful  front 
off  the  Head  of  Old  Kinsale  and  had  killed  twelve 
hundred  people  amongst  whom  were  scores  of  our 
own  citizens,  including  women  and  babies,  we  would 
have  been  more  than  incredulous. 

In  each  assumed  happening  the  world  outside  those 
who  saw  and  suffered  would  have  said  the  reports  were 

15  217 


218  Lei  Us  Have  Peace 

absurd.  Such  animals  did  exist  some  millions  of  years 
ago;  they  were  reptiles;  they  did  rule  the  land  and  the 
sea  and  the  air;  but  they  long  since  passed  away. 
This  is  the  twentieth  century,  such  monsters  no  longer 
exist  and  such  things  cannot  happen. 

But  at  the  times  and  places  indicated  events  actually 
happened  as  sinister,  as  hideous,  as  pitiful,  as  un- 
believable as  they  could  have  been  if  the  Zeppelin  had 
been  a  Pterodactyl  and  the  German  war  machine  a 
group  of  Dinosaurs  and  the  submarine  a  Plesiosaur. 

The  reptilian  bodies  of  the  Saurians  are  dead,  but 
reptilian  morals,  reptilian  faith,  reptilian  manners  and 
reptilian  purposes,  we  now  know  have  never  died; 
they  flourish  in  the  twentieth  century;  they  have  added 
to  the  terrible  beaks  and  claws  and  armor  of  their 
physical  forebears  the  power  of  trained  intellect  and  all 
the  forces  of  scientific  knowledge;  they  have  found 
lodgment  in  German  bodies,  minds  and  souls;  they  have 
found  expression  in  the  unspeakable  criminal  record 
that  long  since  made  Germany  a  Pariah  amongst  the 
nations. 

We  have  only  just  begun  to  appreciate  these  dreadful 
facts.  It  has  been  almost  impossible  for  us  to  grasp 
the  truth.  It  was  in  fact  about  as  colossal  a  task  for 
us  to  dislocate,  dismember  and  destroy  our  usual  con- 
ceptions of  decency,  in  order,  for  ourselves  and  the 
world,  to  resist  the  demands  of  Germany,  as  it  would 
be  for  us  to  breathe  and  survive  if  the  atmosphere  of 
the  age  of  Saurians  were  suddenly  substituted  for  the 
air  of  our  usual  habitat.  We  are  temporarily  wearing 
moral  gas  masks  while  the  boys  over  there  fight  the 
great  reptile  similarly  protected  physically.  We  hate 
it;  but  we've  got  to  do  it  and  we  are  going  through  it. 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  219 

It  seems  to  me  that  these  reptihan  quahties  were 
kept  aUve  and  developed  in  Germany  in  this  way: 

Man  is  the  only  rational  animal.  Therefore  man  is 
the  only  animal  that  can  He  or  be  deceived  by  lies. 
Lying  is  a  wicked  and  an  unforgivable  perversion  of 
man's  loftiest  powers.  Lying  can  succeed  only  if  the 
person  lied  to  is  credulous  and  honest  or  if  he  is  en- 
tirely at  the  mercy  of  the  har.  Lying  to  another  Har 
is  less  effective  and  less  dangerous. 

The  appalling  crimes  committed  by  Germany  within 
four  years  do  not  reach  their  climax  in  her  perversion 
of  scientific  achievements  into  implements  of  indis- 
criminate murder,  they  do  not  reach  their  chmax  in 
rape  officially  condoned  if  not  ordered,  nor  in  forcing 
people  through  hunger  into  slavery;  her  great  crime 
consists  in  systematic  lying,  lying  first  to  her  own 
people  and  then  to  all  other  peoples.  Von  Papen's 
characterization  of  the  American  people  as  idiots  has 
in  it  the  sneer  of  Mephistopheles.  To  the  German  how 
gullible  we  were;  what  children  not  to  see  the  he  and 
its  purpose!  We  were  children  by  the  German  standard 
of  honor.  But  now  we  know,  now  we  are  keeping  the 
reckoning  and  we  propose  to  make  the  great  Liar  pay 
to  the  uttermost  farthing. 

What  a  welter  of  lying  preceded  and  produced  the 
present  mental  and  moral  attitude  of  the  people  of  the 
German  Empire.  Assume  if  you  like  a  certain  natural 
cruelty,  brutahty  and  ruthlessness  in  the  Teuton, 
admit  that  he  does  not  normally  react  to  the  standards 
adhered  to  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Latin  and  you 
have  not  explained  the  existing  conditions.  The 
German  people  since  1848  have  been  transformed 
through  brutal  philosophy  and  successful  lying.    They 


220  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

are    to-day    high   and   low,    educated   and   ignorant, 
utterly  and  monstrously  cruel. 

Listen  to  a  few  of  the  things  the  German  People  were 
taught  in  order  to  prepare  them  for  this  war: 

Stirner  said: 

''WTiat  does  right  matter  to  me?  I  have  no  need 
of  it.  *  *  *  I  have  the  right  to  do  what  I  have 
the  power  to  do." 

The  Kaiser  said : 

''Woe  and  death  to  all  who  shall  oppose  my  will. 
Woe  and  death  to  those  who  do  not  beheve  in  my 
mission." 

Von  Gottherg  said : 

"War  is  the  most  august  and  sacred  of  human 
activities." 

And  again: 

"Let  us  laugh  with  all  our  lungs  at  the  old  women 
in  trousers  who  are  afraid  of  war,  and  therefore 
complain  that  it  is  cruel  and  hideous.  No!  war 
is  beautiful." 

Pastor  Lehmann  said : 

"Germany  is  the  centre  of  God's  plans  for  the 
world." 

Bernhardt  said : 

"Might  is  the  supreme  right." 
Tannenberg  said: 

"War  must  leave  nothing  to  the  vanquished  but 
their  eyes  to  weep  with." 

The  German  troops  have  bettered  that  instruction. 
They  have  in  many  cases  not  left  even  eyes  to  weep 
with. 

And  ha\^ng  taught  the  people  to  accept  those 
standards,  listen  to  this: 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  221 

Kuhn  said: 

"Must  culture  build  its  cathedrals  upon  hills  of 
corpses,  seas  of  tears,  and  the  death  rattle  of  the 
vanquished?    Yes,  it  must," 

Heine  said: 

''Not  only  Alsace-Lorraine  but  all  France  and  all 
Europe  as  well  as  the  whole  world  will  belong 
to  us." 

Chamberlain,  the  renegade  Englishman,  said : 

"He  who  does  not  believe  in  the  Divine  Mission 
of  Germany  had  better  go  hang  himself,  and 
rather  to-day  than  to-morrow." 

Frederick  said: 

"All  written  Constitutions  are  scraps  of  paper." 

And  so  we  have  this  long  list  of  crimes,  not  by  any 
means  yet  complete.  The  crimes  began  appropriately, 
with  self-\'iolated  honor;  nothing  was  difficult  after 
that.  The  people  of  Germany  still  think  they  know 
what  dishonor  is,  what  murder  is,  what  rape  is,  but 
none  of  these  things,  within  the  good  old  German 
world  governed  by  the  good  old  Pagan  German  God 
and  the  Kaiser  means  what  it  means  elsewhere.  The 
inhibition  laid  against  all  these  crimes  still  nominally 
holds  as  between  Germans  but  has  no  significance  in 
their  outside  relations,  indeed  to  commit  these  crimes 
against  outsiders  is  rather  laid  upon  Germans  and 
accepted  by  them  as  a  duty  and  an  evidence  of  loyalty 
and  \irtue. 

The  blasting  indictment  that  lies  to-day  against 
the  German  people  is  not  alone  that  they  are  guilty 
of  crimes  indescribable  but  that  the  military  caste 
through   a  program   deliberately   adopted   has   made 


222  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

them  a  nation  of  liars,  cruel  liars,  the  kind,  as  Ir\'ing 
Bacheller  puts  it  "that  made  Hell  famous". 

And  why  did  the  military  caste  believe  it  to  be 
necessary  first  to  lie  to  their  own  people  and  then  to 
lie  wholesale  through  their  so-called  Ambassadors  who 
as  a  matter  of  fact  for  years  have  been  chiefs  in  an 
unprecedented  army  of  espionage,  Captains  in  the 
army  of  dishonor?  Germany  adopted  this  program  in 
part  because  of  a  kind  of  natural  obsession  which  made 
her  leaders  really  believe  in  Teutonic  superiority, 
partly  because  the  people  would  not  follow  the  miUtary 
caste  if  they  were  told  the  truth,  and  partly  from  what 
seemed  to  be  real  necessity. 

This  war  is  the  culmination  of  the  German  program 
which  was  stimulated  at  least  by  the  world's  program. 

And  what  has  been  the  world  program? 

That  brings  us  to  the  primary  cause  of  the  war. 

The  primary  cause  of  this  war  is  a  condition,  a 
political  condition  inherited  from  previous  centuries; 
a  condition  which  in  its  history  records  the  struggles 
of  human  society  as  certainly  as  the  rocks  tell  the 
storj^  of  the  evolution  of  the  earth;  a  condition  which 
has  qualified  and  largely  controlled  the  ambitions,  the 
triumphs,  the  defeats,  the  aspirations  of  the  human 
race;  a  condition  which  has  served  mankind  but  has 
also  bound  it  and  still  binds  it  as  with  bands  of  steel. 
We  have  now  reached  the  age  in  politics  when,  if  demo- 
cratic civihzation  is  to  sur\'ive,  we  must  first  slay 
this  reptile  and  then  break  these  bonds.  Vital  as  the 
first  duty  is  the  second  in  due  course  will  become  even 
more  important. 

The  chief  human  agent  in  the  perpetuation  of  that 
political  condition  in  relatively  modern  times,  the  man 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  223 

who  used  it  most  effectively  for  the  furtherance  of 
his  own  purposes  and  his  own  ambitions  and  therefore 
the  chief  criminal  is  Frederick  of  Prussia,  sometimes 
miscalled  the  Great,  and  apotheosized  in  eight  volumes 
by  Carlyle.  The  chief  U\ing  criminal,  who  after  all  is 
merely  carrying  out  Frederick's  program,  is  WilHam 
the  Second,  King  of  Prussia  and  German  Emperor. 

Back  of  WiUiam,  back  of  Frederick,  and  still  domi- 
nant in  the  world  lies  this  condition,  brutal,  bestial, 
inhuman,  monstrous,  unintelhgent,  but  nevertheless 
more  powerful  than  all  Kings  and  all  Kaisers,  the 
chief  source  indeed  of  all  their  authority.  That  con- 
dition expressed  in  terms  of  government  we  call  the 
Doctrine  of  Sovereignty.  That  Doctrine  is  the  law  of 
the  jungle;  its  morality  is  still  the  morality  of  the 
jungle.  It  was  born  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  begun 
in  the  primeval  ooze  before  either  reason  or  conscience 
had  been  developed.  It  has  yielded  httle  to  the  reason 
or  conscience  of  any  nation  as  such;  in  Germany  it 
has  utterly  overborne  both. 

It  has  persisted  essentially  unchanged  against  ad- 
vancing intelligence  and  improved  morality.  It  differs 
in  no  respect  from  the  law  followed  by  the  cave-man. 
The  cave-man  evolved  from  his  family  a  larger  unit 
called  the  tribe,  and  that  unit  evolved  a  still  larger 
unit  called  the  clan,  and  that  unit  evolved  a  still 
larger  unit  called  the  state.  When  any  state  after  bloody 
struggles  became  large  enough  or  strong  enough,  it 
took  its  place  as  a  unit  in  a  little  group  of  equals,  and 
established  what  has  been  called  a  "balance  of  power". 
Frequently  with  others  and  occasionally  alone  it  then 
forced  smaller  or  weaker  powers  into  a  condition  of 
semi-vassalage.      Whenever    any    unit    has    thought 


224  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

itself  strong  enough  to  disregard  the  ''balance  of 
power"  so  created,  it  has  tried,  and  naturally  tried,  to 
dominate  the  entire  world.  The  whole  structure 
rested  and  still  rests  on  essential  savagery.  Frederick 
saw  that  and  taught  Germany  its  brutal  law.  Frederick 
saw  that  a  supreme  trial  of  strength  between  these 
units  was  inevitable.  The  only  doubtful  questions 
were  when  would  it  come,  and  what  people  would  be 
best  prepared.  Every  citizen  of  every  nation,  demo- 
cratic as  well  as  autocratic,  knew  this  in  a  hazy  sort 
of  way;  every  citizen  of  every  sort  of  country  has  for 
centuries  known  in  his  heart  that  his  life  was  forfeit 
at  a  moment's  notice — if  the  state  called  for  it.  Every 
citizen  for  centuries  has  known  that  the  call  was  sure 
to  come,  if  not  for  him  then  for  his  sons.  For  centuries 
the  governmental  units  of  human  society  have  either 
been  fighting  or  they  have  lived  in  that  condition  of 
suspended  hostility  which  we  call  peace.  There  was 
no  doubt  about  what  would  happen.  Men  talked  about 
permanent  peace  and  deliberately  perpetuated  a  con- 
dition which  meant  war.  As  a  people  we  lived  for  a 
half-century  on  the  theory  that  the  brotherhood  of 
man  had  been  achieved  and  therefore  we  made  no 
reasonable  preparations  for  the  struggle  which  was 
sure  to  spring  out  of  the  international  system  of  which 
governmentally  we  were  a  part.  Of  all  the  great  powers 
we  were  the  most  utterly  illogical. 

We  preserved  the  savage  underlying  condition  as 
completely  in  substance  as  Germany  did.  If  a  man 
anywhere  advanced  a  program  that  would  avoid  its 
sinister  perils,  he  was  denounced  as  a  theorist  and  a 
dreamer;  that  is  still  true.  If  a  man  faced  the  facts 
and  demanded  adequate  provision  for  defense,  he  was 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  225 

denounced  as  a  "jingo,"  that  is  no  longer  true.  If 
nations  attempted  to  solve  the  problem  as  they  did  at 
The  Hague  they  paltered  and  shuffled.  Men  have  not 
yet  been  able — except  within  limited  areas — to  take 
the  great  step  necessary  to  lift  the  world  above  the 
operation  of  this  savage  law. 

The  great  indi\idual  criminals,  li\dng  and  dead,  were 
both  a  product  and  a  cause.  They  were  the  product  of 
the  age-long  hostility  between  the  units  of  organized 
society.  They  were  a  cause  in  that  they  not  unnaturally 
seized  opportunity  and  gathered  into  their  own  hands 
the  power  which  society  thrust  at  them.  The  Doctrine 
of  Rule  b}^  Di\dne  Right  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sover- 
eignty are  very  nearly  expressions  of  the  same  idea  in 
different  forms.  When  Louis  XIV  said  that  he  was  the 
state  he  was  only  defining  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty 
in  personal  terms. 

Democracies  have  built  society — not  governments — 
on  the  idea  that  all  men  can  be  trusted,  that  the  average 
man  is  not  a  savage,  that  he  is  walling  to  concede  the 
rights  to  others  that  he  demands  for  himself.  Through 
the  development  of  science  time  and  distance  were 
annihilated;  there  are  to-day  no  foreign  lands  except 
governmentally.  Governments  are  as  far  apart  to-day 
as  they  were  before  Watts  and  Morse  and  Bell  and 
Field  and  Marconi  were  born.  Governments  in  their 
relations  are  still  unscientific,  savage  and  medieval ;  the 
condition  red  in  tooth  and  claw  still  remains. 

The  Reptilian  age  passed  physically  because  con- 
ditions on  the  earth  changed  physically.  There  were 
upheavals  from  time  to  time.  The  land,  the  sea  and 
the  air  became  less  and  less  suited  to  Saurians.  Count- 
less new  and  apparently  less  efficient  forms  of  life  ap- 


226  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

peared.  Naturally  the  reptiles  fought  the  newer  forms 
of  life  with  increasing  ferocity  and  slew  them  as  they 
could.  But  finally  when  the  hour  came  there  was  a 
vaster  upheaval,  conditions  changed  \'iolently,  the 
very  atmosphere  changed,  and  now  all  that  physically 
remains  of  these  early  lords  of  the  land,  the  sea  and 
the  air,  is  their  impress  in  the  clay  or  marl  where  they 
died  when  the  earth  became  tired  of  them. 

The  dominance  of  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  in 
the  relations  of  nations  makes  this  poUtically  the  age 
of  the  Saurian.  Sovereignty  asserted  by  either  a 
democracy  or  an  autocracy  in  the  last  analysis  means 
war,  and  perhaps  the  most  inconsistent  and  absurd, 
yet,  under  existing  conditions,  entirely  necessary  thing 
in  the  world  is  a  democracy  asserting  its  sovereignty 
against  another  democracy. 

This  war  is  that  vaster  upheaval,  that  violent  change 
which  is  either  to  embalm  William  along  wdth  Alex- 
ander and  Napoleon  and  all  that  tribe  for  the  education 
and  edification  of  future  generations  or  it  is  to  crush 
temporarily  that  form  of  political  Ufe  which  found 
expression  in  Magna  Charta  and  the  Declaration  of 
1776.  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves :  either  thing  can 
still  happen :  Right  does  not  always  win.  Barbarians 
conquered  Rome ;  Archimedes  was  slain  by  an  ignorant 
Roman  soldier;  Alexander  Hamilton,  the  most  luminous 
inteUigence  in  our  history,  one  of  the  greatest  poUtical 
thinkers  of  any  age  was  killed  by  an  adventurer. 

As  the  evolution  of  the  earth  gradually  drove  away 
the  miasm  and  mists  in  which  the  saurian  flourished, 
so  an  increasing  love  of  ordered  Liberty  has  driven 
away  in  part  the  political  mists  and  the  mysteries  on 
which  Frederick  and  his  kind  have  flourished.     The 


Woodrow  WiUon  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  227 

accumulation  of  public  opinion  like  the  accumulation  of 
sediment  in  the  shallow  seas  of  the  Mesozoic  period 
has  weakened  the  crust  of  the  ancient  order:  there  have 
been  through  the  centuries  \'iolent  upheavals,  some 
before  and  some  within  our  knowledge  and  memory: 
in  1776,  1792,  1848,  1861. 

We  can  well  imagine  that  when  the  earth  began  to 
tremble  and  the  air  to  freshen  and  the  waters  to  shift, 
the  Saurians  made  a  concerted  assault  upon  all  other 
forms  of  hfe.  WiUiam  and  Franz-Joseph,  possessed  of 
reptilian  morals,  reptilian  faith  and  reptilian  purposes, 
had  been  listening  to  the  rumbhngs  of  democracy  for 
forty  years.  They  smiled  as  they  looked  at  their  own 
equipment :  their  huge  claws  and  beaks  and  teeth  and 
armorplate  and  observed  that  the  peoples  who  were 
stirring  had  no  means  of  offense  and  little  of  defense. 
They  laughed  as  they  saw  their  enemy  democracy, 
di\dded  into  twenty  or  thirty  hostile  camps,  each  pro- 
fessing a  program  of  human  brotherhood  but  inter- 
nationally following  the  program  of  autocracy.  They 
saw  a  generation  ago  that  either  they  or  democracy 
must  go.  They  were  logical.  They  did  not  palter. 
When  the  time  came  they  struck  as  the  great  reptiles 
did. 

The  great  criminal  of  this  century,  the  man  whose 
name  will  go  down  in  history  with  Caligula  and  Attila 
is  William  the  Second,  German  Emperor.  But  William 
after  all  represents  a  system,  an  idea.  He  is  true  to  his 
class.  He  is  morally  a  Saurian.  The  Great  Reptiles 
probably  despised  the  hordes  of  birds  and  fish  and 
animals  so  indifferently  equipped  both  for  offense  and 
defense;  They  naturally  assumed  that  they  themselves 
could  not  have  been  so  wonderfully  endowed  except  by 


228  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

the  wish  of  the  Almighty.  If  they  thought  at  all,  they 
doubtless  believed  they  were  the  chosen  of  God. 

There  was  no  such  thing  as  reforming  a  Saurian: 
he  had  to  go.  There  is  apparently  no  such  thing  pos- 
sible as  reforming  and  humanizing  a  Hohenzollern  or  a 
Hapsburg:  they  must  go. 

The  particular  in  which  Frederick  was  a  criminal  and 
William  is  a  criminal  is  this: 

The  people  had  begun  to  break  down  this  ancient 
superstition.  They  took  a  great  step  forward  in  ]\Iagna 
Charta,  another  in  the  Declaration  of  1776,  another  in 
the  French  Revolution,  another  in  our  Federal  Con- 
stitution. The  movement  was  so  strong  in  recent 
times  that  peace  has  reigned  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years  between  the  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race. 

William's  great  crime — following  the  teaching  of 
Frederick — lies  in  his  bitter  opposition  to  that  move- 
ment resulting  in  a  complete  perversion  of  a  great 
people.  He  has  dragged  a  whole  race  back  and  down 
into  the  shme  of  medievalism.  He  must  go.  The 
German  people,  of  themselves,  must  crawl  up  out  of 
that  slime  and  stand  upright  before  men  or  be  en- 
gulfed in  the  moral  damnation  that  waits  for  all  who 
stay  there. 

"WTiy  did  the  allied  nations  allow  Germany  to  build 
up  her  terrible  war  machine?  Why  did  they  not  stop 
it?  Why  did  Great  Britain  when  she  realized  the 
menace  content  herself  merely  with  proposals  that 
both  nations  take  a  holiday  in  war  preparation?  Why 
did  Germany  sneer  at  such  proposals  and  immediately 
speed  up  her  preparations? 

Again  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty. 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  229 

Great  Britain  could  only  protest  and  protest  politely; 
to  have  done  more  would  have  meant  war  and  would 
have  established  a  dangerous  precedent.  If  Sovereign 
Germany  could  be  stopped  in  any  program,  however 
wicked,'  so  might  Great  Britain  be  stopped  in  any 
program  however  beneficent.  Germany  was  protected 
by  this  monstrous  fiction  and  Great  Britain  and  France 
were  paralyzed  by  it.  As  a  result  preparations  to  rape 
and  assassinate  the  world  went  on  openly  and  shame- 
lessly. That  hideous  folly  controls  the  destinies  of  men 
to-day. 

The  cause  of  this  war,  the  source  of  this  great  crime, 
is,  therefore,  the  DOCTRINE  OF  SOVEREIGNTY. 
The  great  li\'ing  criminal  is  William. 

\ATien  William  goes  we  shall  have  gained  little  if 
Sovereignty,  as  now  defined,  does  not  go  with  him. 
If  the  Doctrine  sur\'ives,  William  will  have  successors 
as  bad  as  he,  possibly  worse. 

The  great  question  is  can  men  preserve  all  that  is 
worth  preser\'ing  in  nationality  without  war?  Or  is 
there  something  in  nationality  that  makes  war  neces- 
sary? Could  governments  effectively  function  as 
governments  if  they  arranged  their  relations  and  set- 
tled their  differences  as  individuals  do,  as  the  States 
of  this  Federal  Union  do? 

Never  has  all  the  world  been  so  nearly  of  one  mind 
on  any  one  subject  as  now.  THERE  MUST  BE  NO 
MORE  SUCH  WARS  AS  THIS.  Everybody  agrees. 
Very  well.    How  then  to  achieve  it. 

Suppose  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  France,  the 
United  States,  Italy,  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary 
had  been  in  some  sort  of  effective  governmental  touch 
for  a  generation  earlier  than  August  1,  1914.    They  had 


230  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

been  for  longer  than  that  in  touch  in  business.  They 
had  erected  great  international  structures  interwoven 
by  all  the  relations  of  commerce  and  banking.  They 
had  no  trouble  in  understanding  each  other.  They  did 
not  fear  each  other.  They  trusted  each  other.  They 
had  in  all  those  relations  no  desire  to  wrong  each  other. 
But  in  their  governmental  relations  all  was  quite  differ- 
ent.    They  all  faced  frontiers  which  were  dead  walls. 

Here  was  a  sharp  line  of  demarcation:  while  the 
people  told  each  other  the  truth,  diplomats  lied  to  each 
other;  while  the  people  dealt  openly,  diplomats  spied 
on  each  other;  while  the  people  through  their  com- 
merce gave  and  received  benefits,  diplomats  planned 
ruin  for  each  other.  Out  of  the  relation  of  the  people 
war  would  probably  never  have  sprung.  Out  of  the 
relation  of  the  diplomats  war  was  certain,  and  con- 
tinued, more  wars  are  equally  certain. 

If,  therefore,  the  people  were  able,  in  spite  of  the 
handicap  of  frontiers,  of  tariffs,  of  races  and  rehgions, 
to  build  up  a  vast  peaceful  fabric  with  which  sover- 
eignty had  little  to  do  except  to  embarass  it,  isn't  it 
likely  that  if  allowed  they  could  build  up  a  like  relation 
governmentally  and  if  they  did  what  would  result  ? 

Fortunately  we  have  a  concrete,  a  living,  a  con- 
vincing example.  The  thing  has  been  done.  The 
history  of  this  country  from  the  time  when  the  Con- 
federation of  1781  was  seen  to  be  a  failure  up  to  the 
present  hour  records  about  all  the  struggles,  all  the 
defeats  and  all  the  victories  that  will  be  recorded  when 
humankind  has  made  an  end  of  its  Fredericks,  its 
Napoleons,  and  its  Williams. 

The  same  thing  has  been  partly  done  in  the  British 
Empire.     After  this  war  the  task  will  be  completed 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  231 

there.  But  completed  in  that  Empn-e  it  will  still 
leave  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  split  in  twain,  it  will 
leave  France  and  Italy  defenseless. 

The  great  duty  of  the  hour  therefore  is  not  merely 
to  make  an  end  of  William  but  to  make  an  end  of  the 
causes  that  helped  to  produce  William.  There  is  in- 
deed a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men :  it  will  be  at  the  flood 
when  William  fails.  It  will  be  the  supreme  opportunity. 
This  century  will  not  see  another  such  opportunity. 

Immediately  after  William  passes,  the  Allied  nations 
will  begin  to  pull  apart  if  they  do  not  immediately  come 
nearer  together.  With  each  passing  day  the  nations 
will  drift  toward  the  old  order:  old  feuds  will  revive, 
what  seem  to  be  economic  necessities  will  reassert 
themselves,  prejudices  will  be  reborn — the  call  of 
Sovereignty  will  sound  and  the  allied  Governments, 
forced  for  a  time  by  the  perils  of  war  into  unified  action 
will  return  to  the  status  quo.  Once  that  is  re-established 
the  great  opportunity  is  lost. 

There  is  abroad  a  curious  feeling  that  while  people 
can  be  internationally  just  in  business  they  cannot  be  so 
in  government.  Men  rated  as  wise  sneer  at  inter- 
nationaUsm,  they  tell  you  that  a  Federation  of  the 
Democracies  of  the  world  is  impracticable;  that  it 
can't  be  done,  and  therefore  why  waste  effort  in  trying 
to  achieve  the  impossible.  That  was  one  of  the  argu- 
ments made  by  George  Clinton  and  his  followers  in 
1788  when  he  so  nearly  defeated  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution in  New  York;  one  of  the  arguments  used  by 
Partick  Henry  in  Richmond  when  he  sought  to  keep 
Virginia  out  of  the  Union.  My  answer  is  that  such  a 
program  is  neither  impracticable  nor  impossible,  and 
no  man,  and  certainly  no  leader,  has  any  right  to  say 


232  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

that,  unless  he  at  the  same  time  admits  his  beUef  that 
man  is  incapable  of  self-government,  his  belief  that  our 
Declaration  of  1776  was  after  all  a  fraud  and  our  Great 
Republic  the  product  of  an  accident. 

]\Ien  are  already  talking  about  the  war  after  the  war. 
Victory  therefore  over  Germany  is  not  expected  to 
settle  many  international  questions.  If  this  war  is 
lost  it  will  settle  many  international  questions — until 
such  time  as  Liberty  can  re-hght  her  extinguished 
torch.  If  this  war  is  won  it  should,  although  it  may 
not,  settle  the  future  relations  of  Nations.  But  why 
should  there  be  war  after  this  war?  What  will  cause 
it?  I  answer: — The  very  conditions,  in  different  form, 
that  caused  this  war:  Sovereignty,  the  fiction  that 
human  rights  behind  frontiers  are  different  from  and 
are  inherently  in  deadly  hostility  to  identical  human 
rights  just  over  the  border.  I  call  that  a  fiction — it  is 
unfortunately  a  terrible  fact.  It  is  a  fact  as  real  as 
that  one  man  is  white  and  another  is  black  and  another 
is  brown  and  another  is  yellow.  But  while  we  can 
understand  the  causes  that  made  this  variety  of  color, 
and  with  color  a  variety  of  religions,  and  while  we  can 
understand  how  these  fundamental  differences  could 
naturally  create  impenetrable  barriers  behind  which 
fear  and  hate  and  misunderstanding  would  intrench 
themselves,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  understand  why  this 
the  greatest  of  all  wars  should  be  controlled  by  no  such 
consideration.  The  amazing  fact  is  that  these,  the  most 
fundamental  and  presumably  most  controlling  of  con- 
ditions, are  not  controlling.  The  lines  of  division  in 
this  war  are  neither  racial  nor  religious.  In  the  be- 
ginning the  division  did  not  even  follow  lines  which 
put  Liberty  on  one  side  and  tyranny  on  the  other. 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  233 

Russia  certainly  did  not  consciously  enter  the  war  in 
defense  of  human  liberty  and  the  reaction  which  has 
followed  the  destruction  of  the  House  of  RomanofT, 
leaves  Russia  perhaps  the  greatest  existing  menace  to 
self-government.  What  determined  the  hues  of  de- 
marcation?    Primarily  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty. 

It  is  not  difficult,  under  that  doctrine,  to  understand 
how  William  persuaded  himself  that  he  was  Vicegerent 
of  the  good  old  German  Pagan  God.  He  took  up  in 
statecraft  the  role  of  a  political  Torquemada.  He 
beheved,  as  Frederick  did,  that  there  must  be  an 
ultimate  clash,  a  final  trial  of  strength.  Germany  had 
been  definitely  preparing  for  forty  years,  Prussia  for  a 
hundred  years.  On  the  first  of  August,  1914,  William 
believed  that  he  had  reached  the  hour  of  fate ;  therefore 
he  struck.  When  Germany  is  beaten  nothing  funda- 
mental will  thereby  have  been  decided.  The  war  after 
the  war  will  come — perhaps  very  soon,  if  the  peoples 
of  the  world  do  not  unite  and  put  an  end  to  the  bar- 
barism that  now  controls  the  relations  of  nations. 

The  preservation  of  nationality  has  long  been  the 
supreme  purpose  of  government  because  under  the 
bitter  struggle  for  existence  men  saw  safety  only  in  the 
state.  Governmentally  men  have  been  taught  and  are 
still  taught  to  look  upon  men  of  other  nations  as  their 
potential  enemies.  Unless  the  state  can  now  be  made  a 
means  to  an  end,  unless  the  barriers  that  divide  democ- 
racy from  democracy  can  be  broken  down,  let  us  stop 
chattering  about  world-peace;  let  us  all  become  Prus- 
sianized in  our  morals  and  manners  and  motives;  let 
us  arm  to  the  teeth  and  prepare  for  the  battles  that 
shall  finally  allow,  even  compel  William  or  some  other 

16 


234  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

— perhaps  an  Anglo-Saxon — to  set  his  foot  on  the  neck 
of  the  world. 

If  Democracy  means  anything  it  means  everything. 
It  doesn't  mean  just  the  rights  of  the  citizens  of  this 
Republic.  If  all  men  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,  the  relations  of  govern- 
ments should  not  be  such  that  men  shall  be  forced  to 
rob  other  men  of  what  God  gave  them.  No  civilized 
man,  as  a  citizen,  wants  to  do  that,  and  when  the 
Germans,  who  alone  seem  to  have  that  conscious  pur- 
pose, have  been  beaten  and  reformed,  if  that  be  pos- 
sible, governments  must  abandon  a  program  by  which 
they  are  themselves  compelled  to  force  men  to  do  that. 

Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  early  Fathers  led  us  out 
into  a  glorious  dawn  when  they  declared  that  Life  and 
Liberty  were  the  inalienable  rights  of  ALL  men.  We 
have  proudly  and  grimly  assented  to  that  truth.  But 
until  we  entered  this  war  it  was  for  us  little  more  than 
a  dream  beyond  our  own  frontiers.  We  had  been 
bound  by  the  law  of  self-preservation,  by  the  Doctrine 
of  Sovereignty.  When  we  entered  this  war  we  in  effect 
in\dted  all  Democracies  to  unite  with  us  and  again 
break  the  chains  that  we  broke  in  1789.  Can  Democ- 
racy do  that?  On  the  answer  to  that  question  hangs 
the  future  of  Liberty. 

What  democracy  shall  mean  to  our  sons  and  daughters 
and  to  their  successors  will  be  determined  first  in  the 
great  battle  now  raging,  in  which  Prussian  autocracy 
is  to  be  defeated  and  finally  driven  from  power,  and 
second  in  the  success  or  failure  of  a  federation  of  the 
democracies  of  the  world  following  that  battle.  If 
Prussianism  is  victorious,  democracy  will  for  a  long 
time  sur\dve   only  in   poUtical   huts   and   caves.     If 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  235 

Prussianism  is  crushed,  Democracy  may  become  as 
splendid  as  its  principles,  as  glorious  as  its  professions. 
But  will  it? 

Not  if  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  survives;  not  if 
the  state  continues  to  be  the  supreme  end  and  not  a 
means  to  an  end. 

Send  William  to  another  St.  Helena,  toss  the  Haps- 
burgs  onto  the  scrap-heap  of  history,  and  keep  the 
present  program  otherwise,  and  you  will  have  made 
little  progress  toward  abiding  peace.  Why  was  Wash- 
ington right  when  he  said  "In  times  of  peace  prepare 
for  war"?  Why  is  that  maxim  just  as  true  to-day  as 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago?  Because  democracy  has 
had  and  has  now  no  comprehensive  and  sufficient  pro- 
gram; because  liberty-loving  men  are  divided  into 
strictly  hmited  and  hostile  camps ;  because  each  democ- 
racy is  certain,  under  economic  pressure,  to  develop 
greed  for  land,  for  dominance  at  sea;  because  democ- 
racies made  up  of  fallible  and  ambitious  men,  ruled 
by  the  laws  of  sovereignty,  cannot  be  trusted  to  be  just; 
because  the  frontiers  of  democratic  sovereignty  mean 
war  almost  as  certainly  as  the  frontiers  of  autocracy 
mean  war. 

There  are  frontiers  that  do  not  mean  war  and  we 
who  live  under  that  unparalleled  achievement  are  only 
beginning  to  realize  its  prophetic  power  and  its  moral 
obligation.  There  are  frontiers  that  preserve  local 
self-government,  the  integrity  of  institutions  and  of 
states,  and  yet  do  not  breed  war.  Such  frontiers  delimit 
the  various  States  of  this  Union.  That  was  not  always 
true.  There  was  a  time — about  a  hundred  and  thirty 
years  ago — when  the  frontiers  of  the  American  States 
meant  just  what  frontiers  in  Europe  mean  now. 


236  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  Original  Thirteen  States  tried  to  Uve  together 
and  at  the  same  time  preserve  separate  Sovereignty  in 
its  full  significance.  They  failed.  It  could  not  be 
done.    It  will  never  be  done. 

The  Confederation,  a  union  between  Sovereignties  as 
such,  became  a  travesty  on  government.  Our  existing 
Federal  Union,  a  Federation,  a  union  of  peoples,  is  w4th 
all  its  imperfections  the  fairest  hope  of  the  world. 

In  its  inception,  construction  and  history,  the 
Federal  Union  tells  the  Allies  how  they  may  organize 
peace. 

Men  talk  about  the  difficulties  of  such  a  program! 
Go  to  Belgium,  to  Poland,  to  Serbia,  to  Armenia,  and 
to  slaughtered  France!  Call  the  expanding  roll  of  our 
own  beloved  dead.  Face  the  certainty  that  this  is  not 
the  end  but  the  beginning  and  then  talk  of  difficulties. 

Away  with  those  who  quibble  about  tariffs,  and 
religions,  and  frontiers,  and  ancient  prejudices.  Of 
what  importance  are  they  now?  We  shall  soon  come 
to  the  hour  of  supreme  crisis.  WTiat  are  we  to  do? 
Who  shall  then  lead  us?  Not  those  who  have  been 
saturated  with  the  precedents  of  absolute  nationality; 
not  those  who  have  already  reacted  to  the  other  ex- 
treme, the  Socialists,  the  Bolshevists  w^ho  know  not 
the  meaning  of  ordered  liberty. 

In  all  the  Babel  of  voices  discussing  the  future  re- 
lations of  nations  the  one  great  voice  that  is  clear  and 
prophetic  and  powerful  is  the  voice  of  Woodrow  Wilson. 
It  takes  us  no  whither  to  say  that  we  should  have 
entered  the  war  sooner.  Most  of  us  will  regret  so  long 
as  we  shall  live  our  long  period  of  hesitancy. 

Our  delay  in  getting  into  the  war  w^ill  be  costly. 
How  costly  to  you  and  to  me  in  money  and  in  hearts' 


Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  237 

blood  we  do  not  yet  know.  But  under  the  President's 
leadership  we  have  been  through  that  travail  of  soul 
which  enables  us  now  to  say  to  the  Government  "Slay 
the  great  reptile,  no  matter  what  it  costs". 

President  Wilson  in  my  opinion  moved  as  rapidly  as 
public  opinion  moved;  he  led  it,  and  finally  crystallized 
it  by  his  timely  and  inspiring  eloquence.  We  are  all  very 
wise  now.    It  is  easy,  alwa3's  easy,  to  be  wise  afterwards. 

But  in  his  vision  of  a  post-bellum  program,  in  his 
prophetic  forecast  of  what  must  be  done,  if  all  this 
precious  blood  is  not  to  be  spilled  in  vain,  the  President 
stands  above  all  other  leaders  of  Nations  and  in  really 
constructive  utterances,  unhappily,  almost  alone. 

He  has  said  that  after  this  war  Democracies  must 
unite,  not  as  States,  not  as  Sovereignties,  not  as  mere 
governments,  but  as  people.  There  sounds  the  pro- 
phetic voice.  In  that  lies  the  only  process  by  which 
victory  can  be  made  worth  all  its  dreadful  cost.  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  program  calls  for  no  surrender  of  liberty, 
no  loss  of  political  integrity,  no  weakening  of  local 
self-government;  on  the  contrary  it  points  the  way  to 
a  larger  world  where  lie  the  peace  and  the  power  that 
the  Thirteen  States  and  their  thirty-five  fellows  have 
found  under  the  Federal  Constitution.  A  mere  League 
of  States  will  not  do.  A  Partnership  of  Sovereignties 
will  not  do. 

The  key  word  is  Federation. 

Federation!     Federation!! 
"*     *     *      :  for  there  is  none  other  name  under 
heaven   given   among   men   whereby   we   must   be 
saved." 

That  is  the  Great  new  Evangel  and  Woodrow  Wilson 
is  its  Prophet. 


A  POLITICAL  SUPERSTITION 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED 

NOVEMBER  3,  1918,  AT  THE  NEW  YORK  AVENUE  METHODIST 

EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


E  ARE  now  waging  two  wars.  To  be 
completely  successful  we  must  win  both. 
The  first  is  against  Germany ;  the  second 
is  against  a  political  superstition.  We 
can  win  the  first  and  lose  the  second.  We 
cannot  win  the  second  in  this  generation — perhaps  not 
in  this  century — unless  we  win  the  first.  If  we  win 
the  first  and  lose  the  second — and  we  can  readily  lose 
the  second — our  children's  children  may  shout  back  at 
our  shades  anathemas  in  the  form  of  the  old  inter- 
rogatory "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?" 

Some  people  have  no  patience  with  those  who  would 
now  discuss  what  we  are  to  stand  for  after  the  war 
against  Germany  has  been  won.  What  we  are  then  to 
stand  for  will  be  largely  determined  by  what  we  are 
thinking  about  now. 

Men  could  be  found  as  late  as  1916  who  became 
impatient  when  far-sighted  men  cried  out  that  we  were 
unready,  that  we  must  prepare.  Earlier  than  that  the 
citizen  who  demanded  preparation  for  war  was  smiled 
at  in  private  and  liable  to  be  hooted  in  public.  As  a 
result,  we  really  began  to  prepare  for  war  after  we 
declared  war. 

238 


A  Political  Superstition  239 

The  problems  of  nations  like  men's  problems  do  not 
often  begin  abruptly  nor  do  they  end  abruptly;  they 
spring  out  of  all  that  has  gone  before  and  the  way  they 
are  solved  and  the  effect  of  their  solution  upon  the 
future  is  determined  by  the  presence  or  absence  of 
pre-vision  and  preparation.  We  were  not  prepared  for 
war  in  April,  1917,  because  we  had  not  grasped  the 
fact  that  we  could  be  brought  into  it.  The  situation 
was  clear.  The  menace  unmistakable.  But  we  blinked 
the  facts. 

When  the  great  hour  comes  in  which  we  are  to  decide 
how  the  world  is  to  be  reconstructed  after  victory  over 
Germany,  and  how  that  victory  can  be  wisely  and 
justly  utihzed,  we  shall  again  be  unprepared  if  we  go 
on  bhnking  other  facts  that  are  just  as  obvious  and 
just  as  sinister  as  Germany's  war  machine  was  before 
August  1,  1914. 

Our  immediate  task,  irrespective  of  everything  else, 
is  to  win  the  first  war  through  a  complete  military 
victory  over  Germany  and  her  allies.  The  time  for 
discussion  about  the  completeness  of  that  duty  ended 
when  the  Congress  declared  war. 

The  second  war  we  are  now  waging  without  knowing 
it,  just  as  we  were  already  waging  war  against  Germany 
long  before  April  1917.  We  were  irrevocably  in  the 
fight  from  the  moment  the  torpedoes  struck  the  "Lusi- 
tania".  Many  of  us  did  not  know  that  we  were  at  war 
with  Germany  after  that  tragedy,  but  some  of  us  knew 
it  because  we  knew  that  two  pohtical  ideals  were  then 
locked  in  a  death  grapple,  that  one  of  those  ideals  was 
ours,  and  we  would  not  surrender  it.  It  took  two  years 
to  bring  us  physically  into  the  fight,  but  the  soul  of 
this  nation  has  been  in  the  fight  since  the  7th  of  May, 


240  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

1915,  and  the  conscience  of  our  people  has  been  fighting 
Germany  since  the  day  when  she  forced  Belgium  to 
choose  between  death  and  dishonor. 

For  exactly  the  same  reason  we  are  now  engaged 
in  the  second — shall  I  say  the  greater? — war.  Most  of 
us  are  unaware  of  the  fact.  We  fight  Germany  and  her 
allies  for  reasons  perfectly  and  inspiringly  stated  and 
restated  by  President  Wilson.  Our  reasons  are  both 
positive  and  negative,  and  because  of  some  historical 
precedents  the  negative  reasons  are  more  remarkable 
and  impressive  than  the  positive. 

We  do  not  seek  territory;  we  do  not  ask  indemnities 
for  ourselves.  Such  an  attitude  ought  not  perhaps  to 
be  remarkable,  but  it  is.  The  instances  where  a  nation 
has  gone  to  war  and  really  had  no  such  motive  have 
been  so  few  that  the  fact  is  startling.  After  two  and 
a  half  years  of  experience  and  observation  we  came  to 
see  that  the  struggle  in  Europe — quite  apart  from  the 
wrongs  inflicted  on  us — was  a  fight  over  an  irrecon- 
cilable issue:  Divine  Right  vs.  Democracy.  So  we 
deliberately  and  after  full  discussion  took  our  place  in 
the  ranks  of  Democracy. 

In  the  second  war  we  fight  a  political  superstition. 
We  see  evidences  of  its  beginning  in  the  cry  that  there 
must  be  no  more  wars  like  this,  in  leagues  to  promote 
peace,  in  the  proposed  League  of  Nations, — an  idea 
which  even  Germany  and  her  allies  profess  to  approve. 

All  these  movements  are  unconscious  recognitions  of 
the  existence  of  a  fundamental  fault  in  civihzation. 
All  of  them  seek  to  correct  that  fault,  but  all  of  them 
are  palliatives  merely.  Not  one  goes  to  the  root  of  the 
difficulty.  All  are  skirmishes  in  the  great  struggle  that 
is  coming. 


A  Political  Superstition  241 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  differences  between 
Divine  Right  and  Democracy  are  irreconcilable;  but 
what  many  people,  including  most  statesmen,  do  not 
see  is  that  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  enforced  by  a 
Democracy  against  another  Democracy  is  only  Di\'ine 
Right  in  another  garb.  The  King  talks  about  his 
sacred  person.  Democracy  talks  about  its  sacred  soil. 
That  Autocracy  should  insist  on  Divine  Right  and 
absolute  sovereignty  is  logical  and  necessary;  that 
Republics — government  through  representation,  gov- 
ernments based  on  inalienable  rights — should  do  the 
same  thing  as  against  other  Republics  is  deplorable, 
and  that  they  should  do  it  and  still  believe  themselves 
to  be  Democratic  is  amazing. 

The  second  war  I  call  a  war  against  a  political 
superstition.  It  will  flame  up  into  a  blaze  when  the 
Alhes  have  disposed  of  the  Hun.  Unless  the  AUied 
Repubhcs  then  recognize  that  the  wolf,  Autocracy, 
hides  in  the  robes  of  Unconditioned  Sovereignty,  the 
second  war  will  be  lost,  and  victory  in  the  first  war 
will  be  frittered  away.  Unless  we  then  smash  the 
frontiers  that  divide  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  and  France,  no  progress  toward  lasting  peace 
will  have  been  made.  War  lies  in  those  frontiers.  Let 
us  not  deceive  ourselves.  Great  Britain  is  the  only 
nation  with  which  during  our  existence  we  have  had 
two  wars.  In  the  last  hundred  years  we  have  re- 
peatedly escaped  other  wars  with  her  only  by  an  eye- 
lash. And  naturally.  If  two  good  men,  peace-loving, 
law-abiding,  meet  and  have  a  difference  in  a  frontier 
town,  where  law  is  more  or  less  uncertain  and  it  is 
known  that  the  man  who  shoots  first  has  the  better 
of  the  argument,  one  or  the  other  is  likely  to  shoot.    If 


242  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

those  same  men  had  a  like  difference  where  law  not  only 
existed  but  was  effectively  administered,  neither  would 
think  of  shooting,  in  fact  neither  would  carry  a  gun. 

Notwithstanding  the  close  co-operation  now  between 
the  Allies,  we  have  not  forgotten  the  disasters  that 
befell  up  to  a  year  subsequent  to  our  entrance  into  the 
war,  chiefly  because  of  confusion  in  council;  council  was 
confused  because  each  of  the  AUies  fought  as  a  separate 
sovereignty.  Victory  is  coming  now  because  all  the 
AlHes  finally  subordinated  sovereignty  and  created  a 
controlling  authority.  That  condition  is  really  more 
necessary  in  peace  than  in  war.  When  German}'-  sur- 
renders the  danger  is  that  all  this  will  end.  The  Alhes 
will  immediately  reassert  their  separate  authority. 
The  barriers  that  were  thrown  down  will  be  re-erected. 
The  dead-lines  called  frontiers  will  be  re-drawn.  IMen 
who  could  fight  together  under  one  commander,  ready 
to  die  for  a  common  cause,  will  refuse  to  live  together 
under  a  common  government  and  work  together  for  in- 
terests that  are  substantially  identical.  Democracy  will 
separate  from  Democracy,  not  because  it  is  necessary 
but  because  of  a  superstition.  War  against  this 
superstition  is  now  going  on  and  will  then  take  definite 
form. 

Germany's  attempt  to  destroy  Europe  and  finally 
to  conquer  the  world  was  not  a  new  or  a  strange  mad- 
ness. France,  glorious  France,  made  the  same  attempt 
a  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  France  went 
mad  under  the  inspiring  leadership  of  a  great  military 
genius.  Her  aim  was  glory.  Victor  Hugo  says  that 
Napoleon  failed  because  he  troubled  God;  that  Waterloo 
was  not  a  battle,  but  a  change  of  front  on  the  part  of 
the  Universe. 


A  Political  Superstition  243 

Germany  went  mad  for  quite  different  reasons. 
Her  madness  began  with  Frederick  who  saw  that  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  between  nations  force  would 
ultimately  be  the  last  word.  He  taught  that  beUef 
to  the  Prussians.  Then  the  world  suddenly  shrank 
through  scientific  developments  and  the  nations  were 
crowded  together.  Government  ally  the  struggle  for 
existence  became  intense.  Sovereignty,  which  admits 
no  law  higher  than  its  own,  was  thrust  \dolently 
against  sovereignty,  and  forced  to  deal  with  problems 
of  increasing  complexity.  There  was  no  real  law. 
There  was  a  makeshift,  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches, 
called  international  law.  The  belief  that  only  the 
strong,  the  prepared,  could  sur\'ive,  called  for  a  philo- 
sophy which  would  justify  whatever  procedure  seemed 
necessary  to  maintain  a  nation's  integrity.  How  easy 
from  this  to  evolve  the  German  creed:  that  Germans 
were  supermen;  that  their  kultur  was  superior  to  all 
other  ci\4hzations ;  that  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  it 
should  be  imposed  on  all  others ;  that  war  the  necessary 
instrument  was  not  only  justifiable  but  noble  and 
beautiful.  Professing  to  defend  her  existence  but 
really  planning  to  assassinate  the  world,  Germany 
worked  steadily  and  consistently  for  forty  years. 
She  spread  a  system  of  espionage  over  all  the  earth; 
she  became  an  international  burglar  and  through  her 
so-called  ambassadors  was  admitted  to  the  homes  of 
friendly  governments  where  she  proceeded  to  survey 
the  house  and  corrupt  the  servants.  She  became  in- 
sanely jealous  because  Great  Britain  was  powerful  at 
sea;  she  raged  at  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  She  taught 
her  people  to  be  hard.  Lying  herself  to  friendly  powers, 
the  disease  spread  through  the  body  politic.     From 


244  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

lying  to  cruelty  is  a  short  step  and  the  German  people 
readily  took  it. 

Then  came  August  1st,  1914,  when  the  All  Highest 
thought  the  hour  of  fate  had  struck.  Between  that 
hour  and  this  lies  the  story  of  German  blasphemy, 
bestiality,  cruelty  and  lying,  together  with  amazing 
efficiency  and  the  brute  courage  of  the  jungle.  That 
Frederick,  in  his  time,  could  see  no  issue  but  war  out 
of  the  struggle  between  states  is  perhaps  not  to  be 
wondered  at:  he  was  medieval  though  logical;  but 
William  is  more  medieval  than  Frederick  was.  The 
humanizing  influence  of  modern  life  that  made  France 
illogical  and  ci\'ilized,  Great  Britain  tolerant  and  un- 
suspicious, and  the  United  States  a  political  fools' 
paradise,  left  Germany  untouched.  She  never  for  a 
moment  forgot  the  law  of  the  jungle.  In  the  face  of 
all  the  world  she  built  her  war  machine,  at  which  in  the 
beginning  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  laughed. 
Then  when  it  began  to  look  formidable  Great  Britain 
mildly  protested  and  proposed  a  holiday.  Then 
Germany  showed  her  teeth  and  moved  swiftly  to  the 
cataclysm  of  the  last  four  years. 

My  point  is  that  back  of  the  lying  monster  that  the 
German  of  to-day  is,  lies  a  cause,  a  cause  that  has 
utterly  transformed  the  German  of  1848  or  eliminated 
him.  That  cause  is  the  inherent  savagery  of  the 
Doctrine  of  Sovereignty;  it  means  force,  it  means  the 
sur\dval  of  the  strong,  it  means  war.  Germany  was 
logical.  Democracies  were  not.  That  Doctrine  as 
between  Democracies  is  clearly  a  superstition — but 
also  a  present  and  a  fearsome  fact.  The  second  war 
will  be  fought — is  now  being  fought — over  what  shall 
be  done  with  it. 


A  Political  Superstition  245 

Through  the  consciousness  of  the  masses  of  the  world 
is  now  rushing  the  conviction  that  while  this  is  a  holy 
war  and  must  be  won  by  the  Allies,  somebodj^  sometime 
made  a  great  mistake  which  must  be  corrected.  They 
cry  ^A-ith  St.  Paul:  ''Who  shall  dehver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death?"  There  is  forming  a  deep  reso- 
lution that  this  awful  tragedy  must  never  be  re- 
peated. They  look  for  leaders,  unconsciously  now, 
because  they  are  blinded  by  the  dust  and  blood  of  the 
struggle.  But  they  will  soon  look  consciously.  And 
what  do  the  great  leaders  of  the  world  offer  as  the 
solution  of  this  hideous  problem? 

A  League  of  Nations. 

Ci\'ihzation  is  not  much  more  than  a  veneer  any- 
where. Scratch  a  ci\dhzed,  self-governing  citizen, 
apply  certain  tests  and  you  soon  come  to  the  savage. 
I  have  read  that  American  Indians,  college-bred,  who 
have  been  and  are  with  the  boys  ''over  there",  when 
they  go  over  the  top  bring  back  trophies  but  they  do 
not  bring  helmets,  they  bring  scalps.  We  are  all  so 
educated  from  infancy  that  when  we  think  of  our 
country  as  really  menaced  by  any  other  country, 
civilization  slips  off  like  a  cloak.  As  the  world  is 
organized  to-day  that  plan  of  education  is  perfectly 
sound. 

Of  course  the  leadership  that  shall  lift  the  democratic 
world  out  of  this  international  medievalism  ought  to 
come  from  this  country.  And  why?  Because  this 
Federal  Union  in  a  world  devasted  and  all  but  ruined 
by  war,  stands  as  the  great  and  single  example  of  how 
sovereignty  can  be  smashed  and  at  the  same  time 
exalted,  and  war— or  at  least  such  wars  as  this — 
avoided.    It  is  as  simple  as  making  an  egg  stand  on  end. 


246  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Smash  the  poUtical  fiction  that  educates  Americans 
to  beheve  that  Canadians  are  their  potential  enemies 
and  vice  versa.  Smash  the  stupid  prejudice  which 
makes  us  fear  that  we  couldn't  pohtically  five  with 
France  while  to-day  we  glorify  France  and  send  our 
boys  to  die  for  her.  Stamp  out  forever  the  work  of 
that  German-English  King  who  spht  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  one  hundred  and  forty  years  ago. 

The  only  remedy  proposed  for  this  fundamental 
fault  in  civilization  is  a  League  of  Nations.  How  the 
old  prejudices  stick!  Have  we  so  soon  forgotten  the 
farce  and  near-tragedy  of  our  own  Confederation — 
which  was  a  League  of  Nations?  Are  we,  under  the 
Federal  LTnion,  like  the  shipwrecked  men  who  in  their 
lifeboat  drifted  into  the  waters  of  the  Amazon  and  were 
dying  of  thirst  with  fresh  water  all  about  them?  Who 
should  know  as  we  do  the  difference  between  a  League 
and  a  Federation?  What  other  people  have  been  led 
from  political  chaos  into  ordered  liberty  by  an  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  and  a  John  Marshall?  And  yet  in  the 
war  against  this  ancient  political  superstition,  already 
on,  what  position  we  shall  take  when  we  become  con- 
scious of  the  struggle  and  formally  enter  it  is  in  doubt. 
Somebody  says:  "Your  theory  is  all  very  well  but  be 
practical.  What  about  the  tariff?"  In  the  face  of  the 
deadly  cost  of  this  war  and  the  shame  of  permitting  a 
continuance  of  conditions  that  may  not  only  allow  but 
force  a  repetition  of  it,  to  suggest  the  tariff  as  an 
argument  seems  almost  a  joke.  But  let  us  consider 
that.  Put  in  one  great  pyramid  all  the  money  collected 
at  all  the  custom-houses  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
since  the  dark  ages  and  it  will  not  equal  the  pyramid  of 
debt  contracted  by  the  belhgerents  since  August  1, 


A  Political  Superstition  247 

1914.  In  a  League  of  sovereign  nations  each  would 
reserve  the  right  to  fix  its  own  tariff  of  course,  and  the 
tariff  would  be  one  of  the  reasons  why  any  such  en- 
terprise would  fail.  So  long  as  Republics  assert  sov- 
ereignty against  other  Republics  the  tariff  is  as  proper 
and  necessary  a  weapon  as  machine  guns  are  in  actual 
war.  Between  leagued  political  units  the  tariff  would 
remain.  Between  Federated  political  units  there 
could  be  no  tariff;  it  would  be  as  impossible  as  a  tariff 
between  Massachusetts  and  New  York,  or  between 
Iowa  and  Illinois. 

That  means  that  not  all  the  world,  not  even  all  of 
the  world  that  is  republican  in  form,  could  be  im- 
mediately admitted  to  such  a  Federation.  It  should 
include  at  first  the  United  States,  Great  Britain  and  her 
self-governing  Dominions,  France,  Belgium  and  perhaps 
Japan  and  Italy.  These  States  should  not  form  a 
League;  they  should  do  in  effect  what  the  Thirteen 
States  did  between  1787  and  1789:  they  should  create 
a  new  and  greater  state  related  to  all  member  states  as 
our  Federal  Government  is  to  our  forty-eight  States. 
Other  nations  could  be  admitted  as  we  admit  States  to 
this  Federal  Union, — whenever  they  qualified  and  en- 
abling acts  were  passed. 

But  again  someone  says:  "Would  you  voluntarily 
quahfy  your  citizenship  in  the  United  States?"  To 
which  I  reply:  'T  would  qualify  and  thereby  glorify  it, 
just  as  the  citizens  of  New  York  exalted  their  citizen- 
ship and  their  State  when  they  entered  the  Federal 
Union." 

The  second  war  will  progress  to  the  point  where  a 
long  forecast  can  be  made,  at  the  peace  table  where  the 
first  war  is  settled.    Then  the  Allies  will  tell  Germany 


248  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

and  her  associate  nations  what  their  boundaries  are 
thereafter  to  be  and  what  they  must  pay.  Following 
that  the  second  war  will  begin  to  take  form. 

If  the  Allies  are  then  so  blind  to  the  lessons  of  history 
that  they  do  not  see  the  supreme  opportunity  and  rise 
to  it;  if  they  patch  up  a  modus  vivendi  which  takes  the 
form  of  a  mere  League  in  which  the  units  are  sovereign- 
ties; if  they  follow  as  a  model  our  Articles  of  Con- 
federation and  not  our  Federal  Constitution;  if  they 
follow  the  teachings  of  George  Clinton  and  Patrick 
Henry  and  not  the  teachings  of  John  Marshall  and 
Alexander  Hamilton,  then  victory  in  the  first  war  won 
at  such  fearful  cost  will  be  frittered  away  and  the 
second  war  will  advance  to  the  condition  of  physical 
combat  as  soon  as  the  several  sovereign  allies  have 
sufficiently  recovered  in  physical  strength  and  resources. 
Unquestionably  the  people  of  the  allied  countries  are 
ready  for  a  great  forward  step.  What  of  the  leaders? 
In  President  Wilson's  message  to  Congress,  delivered 
December  4,  1917,  I  thought  I  heard  the  voice  of 
Alexander  Hamilton.  He  then  declared  directly  for  a 
Union  of  Peoples  and  distinguished  that  from  a  mere 
union  of  governments;  he  declared  for  a  Federation  as 
distinguished  from  a  League. 

In  his  address  in  New  York  on  September  27,  1918, 
he  went  no  farther  than  a  League.    In  a  later  utterance* 
he  apparently  abandons  all  idea  of  federation  and  says: 
''I,  of  course,  meant  to  suggest  no  restriction  upon 
the  free  determination  of  any  nation  of  its  own 
economic  policy,   but  only  that  whatever  tariff 
any  nation  might  deem  necessary  for  its  economic 
service,  be  that  tariff  high  or  low,  it  should  apply 
equally  to  all  foreign  nations." 

*Letter  to  Senator  Simmons. 


A  Political  Superstition  249 

Any  tariff  determined  solely  by  the  seeming  necessities 
of  a  nation  means  economic  war,  means  absolute 
sovereignty,  means  international  anarchy,  means  phy- 
sical war  ultimately. 

Ex-President  Taft  proposes  the  League  to  Enforce 
Peace.  This  League  would  be  only  our  old  Confedera- 
tion in  another  form.  It  is  merely  a  proposal  to  in- 
augurate a  program  which  will  inevitably  lead  to 
confusion.  It  is  a  proposal  to  do  what  the  Thirteen 
States  did  and  then  repudiated  as  inadequate.  It  is  a 
proposal  to  coerce  states  admitted  to  be  sovereign. 
That  was  the  supreme  issue  in  our  Civil  War.  The 
Southern  States  never  admitted  that  they  had  really 
surrendered  sovereignty.  If  they  were  still  sovereign, 
then  the  Union  could  be  dissolved.  Therefore  it  is  that 
Lincoln  was  so  utterly  right  when  he  said  the  issue  was 
not  slavery  but  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  The 
Essence  of  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  is  a  very  old 
idea.  It  has  been  repeatedly  tried;  has  repeatedly 
failed;  and  has  repeatedly  been  abandoned. 

Ex-President  Roosevelt  rages  at  all  Leagues  and 
advocates  the  principles  that  powerfully  influenced 
Germany  and  drove  her  toward  madness.  He  calls  for 
universal  mihtary  training,  a  great  navy,  a  great  army 
and  defiance  to  all  the  world. 

As  against  the  later  ideas  of  President  Wilson  and 
the  suggestions  of  Mr.  Taft,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  at  least 
logical;  they  are  not.  Mr.  Roosevelt  accepts  the  brutal 
doctrine  of  sovereignty,  would  not  apparently  abandon 
it  for  any  other  suggestion,  and  then  frankly  faces  the 
inevitable  consequences.  Unless  we  make  a  funda- 
mental change  in  the  relations  of  states  Mr.  Roosevelt 
is  right. 

17 


250  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Of  the  three  President  Wilson  alone  seems  for  a 
moment  to  have  seen  the  light,  but  it  quickly  faded. 

In  other  nations  great  names  are  associated  with 
approval  of  a  League  of  Nations.  Not  one,  however, 
has  definitely  stated  what  the  League  he  has  in  mind 
exactly  should  be.  None  dares  seemingly  to  declare 
for  the  necessary  order  of  a  new  world.  None  sees, 
apparently,  that  world-democracy  will  soon  face  a 
crisis  as  great  as  that  which  faced  the  democracies  of 
America  in  1789.  The  crisis  of  1789  was  gloriously 
passed  under  the  leadership  of  George  Washington, 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  John  jMarshall.  They  led 
the  people  up  out  of  the  slough  of  unconditioned  sov- 
ereignty, tariffs,  suspicion  and  fear  into  the  rational 
democracy  of  our  Federal  Union. 

Where  are  the  men  who  are  to  lead  us,  and  other 
democracies,  as  we  face  the  supreme  opportunity  which 
peace  will  bring?  The  crisis  will  be  singularly  like  that 
which  followed  the  Peace  of  Paris.  But  with  this 
difference:  in  1783  the  Confederation — a  League  of 
Nations — had  already  been  created.  It  took  years  to 
demonstrate  its  impotence.  When  peace  comes  we 
shall  have  no  existing  confederation  to  get  rid  of.  We 
shall  have  a  clean  blank  page  on  which  to  write.  What 
shall  we  write  there? 

Within  five  years  the  world  has  lost  in  money  and 
manhood  more  than  it  ever  lost  in  any  pre\ious  century, 
in  any  previous  two  centuries.  The  appalhng  cost  and 
demoralization  are  alone  sufficient  to  show  that  the 
fault  is  fundamental  and  not  personal;  it  Hes  behind 
the  Kaiser;  it  is  not  even  national;  it  reaches  back  of 
Germany  to  the  structure  of  civihzation  itself. 

With  Germany  beaten  and  a  League  of  Nations 


A  Political  Superstition  251 

formed,  nothing  fundamental  has  been  changed,  no 
real  corrective  has  been  appUed,  no  assurance  has  been 
given  the  people  of  the  world  that  their  splendid  fight 
and  unselfish  sacrifices  have  been  made  worth  while. 
We  need  leaders  now  who  will  do  for  the  aUied  powers 
what  John  Marshall  and  Alexander  Hamilton  did  for 
the  Thirteen  States.  The  Federal  Constitution  was  a 
revolution  in  democracy.  Never  before  is  there  a  re- 
corded instance  where  thirteen  states  which  considered 
themselves  sovereign,  voluntarily  surrendered  their 
petty  ambitions  and  merged  their  sovereignty  into  a 
larger  power  charged  with  responsibility  for  all  inter- 
state questions — and  yet  directly  representative  of  the 
people.    Will  the  second  and  greater  revolution  come? 

Thus  far  our  leaders  do  not  lead ;  they  do  not  see  the 
light,  or,  if  they  see  it,  they  are  afraid  of  it. 

The  second  war  is  on,  the  great  political  superstition 
is  approaching  the  bar  of  public  opinion.  If  it  is  found 
guilty  and  condemned,  then  for  the  first  time  the 
political  faith  formulated  in  our  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence will  be  the  faith  of  Democracy,  not  merely 
of  this  Democracy,  but  of  Democracy — the  right  to 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  will  really 
inhere  in  all  responsible  men  and  not,  as  now,  only  in 
those  who  are  prepared,  always  prepared  for  war. 

Viscount  Grey  tells  a  story  of  a  native  chief  in 
Africa,  who  protested  to  a  British  official  against 
having  to  pay  any  taxes  at  all.  The  British  official 
explained  that  these  taxes  were  used  to  keep  order  in 
the  country,  with  the  result  that  men  and  women  and 
the  flocks  and  herds  and  possessions  of  every  tribe  were 
safe,  and  each  could  live  in  its  own  territory  without 
fear  or  disturbance,  and  that  the  payment  of  taxes  was 


252  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

for  the  good  of  all.  The  effect  of  this  explanation  was 
to  make  the  chief  very  angry.  Before  the  British  came, 
he  said,  he  could  raid  a  neighbor,  return  with  captives 
and  captures  of  all  sorts  and  be  received  in  triumph  by 
the  women  and  the  rest  of  his  tribe.  The  need 
for  protecting  his  own  tribe  from  similar  raids  he 
was  willing  to  undertake  himself.  "Now",  he  said, 
"you  come  here  and  tell  me  that  I  ought  to  like 
to  pay  taxes  to  be  prevented  from  doing  this,  and  that 
makes  me  mad". 

How  much  of  the  frank  confession  of  this  simple 
African  lies  concealed  in  the  instinctive  objection  made 
by  the  average  citizen  when  asked  to  support  a  Federa- 
tion rather  than  a  League  of  Nations?  I  wonder — how 
much.  The  average  man  approves  of  a  League  because 
in  his  deepest  heart  under  that  program  he  reserves 
always  the  right  to  raid  his  neighbors;  he  doesn't  think 
of  it  in  just  that  way  but  that  is  what  it  means — that 
is  what  complete  sovereignty  means. 

Already  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  are 
preparing  for  industrial  war  on  each  other.  The 
battle  will  soon  shift  from  the  Marne  to  the  sea,  from 
the  trenches  to  the  Custom  Houses.  The  weapons  will 
chiefly  be  those  of  economic  machine  guns  called  tariffs. 

The  struggle  will  go  on  if  we  form  a  mere  League  and 
not  a  Federation,  until  the  nations  are  healed  of  this 
war,  financially  and  physically,  until  one  nation  be- 
lieves itself  strong  enough  to  stand  alone.  Then  on 
some  pretext  of  necessity  or  of  so-called  "honor",  like 
the  otherwise  peaceful  citizen  of  a  frontier  town,  some- 
one will  shoot,  and  the  horrors  of  the  last  four  and  a 
half  years  will  return. 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO 
WITH  VICTORY? 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  WITH  VICTORY? 


AN  ADDRESS,  1918 


E  HAVE  helped  to  win  a  complete  vic- 
tory over  the  enemies  of  ordered  liberty. 
WTiat  are  we  and  the  Allies  —  to- 
gether the  responsible,  liberty-lo\ing, 
self-governing  nations  of  the  world, — 
now  to  do  with  victory? 

By  that  question  I  do  not  mean  how  shall  we  dispose 
of  the  immediate  problems  of  territory,  of  reparation 
and  restoration,  of  self-determination  and  all  that. 
We  can,  indeed  we  must  assume  that  at  the  peace 
table  all  these  matters  will  be  dealt  with  effectively, 
perhaps  sternlj^,  certainly  justly.  I  mean  something 
more  far-reaching,  something  that  will  give  the  justice 
which  we  assume  in  all  those  decisions  a  wider  applica- 
tion and  a  new  significance. 

This  war  has  been  an  earth  shaker.  It  has  applied 
the  acid  test  to  ci\'ilization.  It  has  made  some  things 
clear — so  clear  that  we  shall  fail  to  understand  them 
only  if  we  forget  our  own  history,  only  if  we  become 
morally  and  socially  deaf  and  bUnd, 

As  yet  we  get  only  a  confused  impression  of  all  the 
mighty  forces  that  make  up  the  panorama — beginning 
in  that  little  town  in  Bosnia  in  June,  1914,  and  ending 
on  the  eleventh  of  November,  1918,  with  that  skulk- 
ing, huddled  figure  in  Holland.     But  that  is  enough  to 

18  253 


254  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

show  that  the  movements  in  this  war  were  funda- 
mental, elemental,  and  that  no  one  man  was  wholly'' 
at  fault.  It  is  clear  also,  I  think,  that  no  single  people 
was  wholly  at  fault.  One  man  must  pay  the  price. 
One  people  must  pay  the  price.  You  remember  what 
Christ  said: 

"Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offenses  *  *  * 
but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh." 

The  primary  fault  that  led  to  this  war  hes  in  the 
very  structure  of  civilization. 

Kings  talk — or  did  talk — about  their  sacred  persons; 
nations,  even  democracies,  talk  about  their  sacred  soil. 
Both  mean  practically  the  same  thing.  Both  are  the 
product  of  a  condition  evolved  through  centuries,  under 
which  the  surface  of  the  earth  has  been  di\dded  into 
curiously  shaped  areas  around  which  dead-lines  are 
drawn  and  between  which  is  an  intangible  strip  where 
there  is  no  law,  except  that  thing  of  shreds  and  patches 
which  we  call  international  law.  Every  nation,  free 
or  otherwise,  is  surrounded  by  potential  anarchy.  No 
Man's  Land  Hes  in  the  very  heart  of  democracy  wait- 
ing for  the  day  when  it  shall  be  plowed  with  shells  and 
drenched  with  human  blood:  it  Hes,  to  be  specific,  on 
our  northern  border  and  stretches  across  more  than 
3,000  miles  of  mutually  unguarded  frontier;  it  Hes  on 
the  sea  and  lurks  in  that  cryptic  phrase  "the  freedom 
of  the  seas".  If  I  understand  what  President  Wilson 
means  by  freedom  of  the  seas — and  I  sometimes  wonder 
whether  anyone  understands  it — Great  Britain  wiU 
ne^er  agree  to  it,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  never  could 
agree  to  it.  As  a  consequence  the  basis  of  grave  differ- 
ences  between   Britain  and  ourselves  is  Hkely  to  be 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory?  255 

laid  down  at  the  peace  table.  Already  the  question 
of  the  relative  size  of  the  British  Navy  and  our  Xavy 
is  being  mooted.  We  shall  probably  soon  have  a  larger 
merchant  fleet  than  Great  Britain  has.  Necessarily  we 
shall  plan  to  protect  it.  On  the  other  hand  the  British 
Empire  from  its  very  nature  cannot  let  her  Navy  be 
less  than  the  Navy  of  any  other  nation.  The  contest 
in  sea-power  that  went  on  so  long  between  Great 
Britain  and  Germany  and  finally  culminated  in  this 
war  is  apparently  about  to  be  transferred  to  the 
British  Empire  and  the  United  States.  Could  any- 
thing be  more  stupid — not  to  say  criminal? 

That  sinister  condition  springs  out  of  the  demands 
of  sovereignty,  which  is  at  once  the  controlling  fact 
and  the  controUing  fault  in  civihzation. 

Sovereignty  is  the  supreme  law  not  only  over  a 
nation's  people  but  over  its  relations  with  other  peoples. 
Sovereignties  make  treaties  with  other  Sovereignties, 
it  is  true,  but  the  interpreters  of  such  treaties  are  the 
nations  that  make  them,  each  for  itself,  and  some- 
times the  nations  disagree  and  sometimes  they  are 
interpreted  by  military  necessity  and  sometimes  they 
are  held  to  be  only  "scraps  of  paper".  This  has  been 
the  rule  of  civilization  for  a  long  time  and  is  the  rule 
to-day.  Therefore  we  have  between  states  so-called 
questions  of  ''honor",  issues  that  we  admit  are  non- 
justiciable. When  we  say  that  a  question  is  non- 
justiciable we  mean  that  civilization  has  no  court  in 
which  that  question  can  be  adjudicated.  Self-respect- 
ing, liberty-loving  men  know  that  the  greatest  issues 
that  can  arise  in  the  world,  issues  that  are  certain  to 
arise,  can  be  settled  only  by  the  arbitrament  of  war. 
That  condition  is  not  the  fault  of  any  man  or  of  any 


256  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

people.  It  grew  out  of  the  evolution  of  society.  But 
woe  be  to  liberty-lo\dng  men  if  they  fail  to  correct  that 
fault  when  the  hour  strikes.  I  hold  that  the  hour  has 
struck. 

Since  sovereignty  was  evolved  out  of  necessity  and 
semi-savagery,  humanity  has  progressed.  Knowledge 
has  grown.  Morals  have  improved.  Science  has  de- 
veloped and  abolished  the  vast  spaces  and  the  time 
that  eailier  di\dded  nations  and  justified  their  fears. 

As  a  result  the  nations  in  recent  years  have  been 
forced  to  deal  with  the  problems  of  modern  life  while 
bound  by  medieval  rules. 

The  law  of  national  existence  still  says  "Be  ready; 
you  are  surrounded  by  enemies;  safety  lies  only  in 
3^our  own  good  right  arm."  That  is  the  voice  of 
medievalism.  The  Kaiser  heard  that  voice  and  heeded 
it.  The  law  of  national  existence  says  that  only  the 
strong,  the  ready,  the  ruthless  may  sur\dve.  That  again 
is  the  voice  of  medievalism.  The  Kaiser  heard  that 
voice  also  and  heeded  it  literallj'.  How  easy  from  this, 
indeed  how  logical — I  had  almost  said  necessary — to 
evolve  the  German  philosophy.  If  a  man  believes  his 
life  is  in  danger  and  sees  a  way  by  which  he  thinks  he 
can  escape,  he  is  certain  to  evolve  reasons  and  plenty 
of  them  that  will  justify  anj^  act  that  seems  necessary 
to  his  safety.  The  German  leaders  taught  by  Freder- 
ick accepted  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty  in  its  entirety. 
They  therefore  needed  a  philosophy  that  would  justify 
and  glorify  war,  and  the  German  philosophers  quickly 
pro\ided  it.  From  that  to  f rightfulness  and  bestiahty 
and  lying  and  unbeUevable  cruelty  was,  for  the  German, 
a  short  and  an  easy  step,  and  for  those  inhuman  crimes 
Germany  must  pay. 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victoryf  257 

The  Doctrine  has  reaped  many  grim  harvests;  but 
it  has  now  reaped  its  greatest  harvest:  eight  milHon 
men  dead;  twenty  million  more  maimed  in  some  way; 
two  hundred  and  twenty  billion  dollars  of  debt.  An 
unprecedented  sacrifice!  An  unparalleled  price  paid! 
For  what?  The  masses  of  mankind  now  mute  will 
ultimately  put  that  question  to  the  leaders  of  the 
world  and  to  the  institutions  of  the  w^orld:  FOR  WHAT? 

Primarily  of  course  for  victory.  Victory  that  can 
be  made  greater  than  all  the  calamity,  worth  more 
than  all  the  loss, — victory  that  for  the  first  time  in  all 
the  tides  of  life  has  placed  liberty-loving  men  in  con- 
trol of  the  destinies  of  mankind. 

What  shall  we  do  with  victory^  In  what  we  do  with 
\'ictory  Hes  the  answer  to  the  peoples'  interrogatory: 
FOR  WHAT? 

Our  boys  went  into  this  war  not  merely  to  defeat 
Germany;  they  went  into  this  war  after  being  swept 
by  the  flame  of  a  righteous  wrath;  they  fought  as 
crusaders;  they  conquered  as  crusaders;  they  want  the 
crusader's  reward.  The  people  won  this  war  and  they 
demand  relief  from  an  intolerable  condition.  They 
want  leaders  who  will  lead,  not  so-called  statesmen 
who  only  dicker  and  trade.  If  our  leaders  do  not 
soundly  use  this  dearly-bought  victory,  if  they  go  on 
tinkering  with  worn-out  machinery,  and  sovereignty 
as  between  liberty-loving  men  is  a  bit  of  worn-out 
machinery,  if  they  fail  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer 
to  that  imperative  FOR,  WHAT?,  there  will  come 
here  and  in  all  democratic  countries  a  bitter  day  of 
reckoning. 

Therefore,  and  because  it  lies  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  problem,  I  hold  that  sovereignty  as  now  enforced 


258  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

is  a  greater  issue  than  the  specific  questions  of  the 
peace  table. 

We  have  sovereignty  with  us  always,  even  though 
we  do  not  recognize  it,  in  peace  as  well  as  in  war. 

Do  you  know  for  example,  of  anything  quite  as 
agonizing  as  the  usual  ambassadorial  speech — post- 
prandial or  official?  Why  does  your  Ambassador — 
who  is  not  infrequentlj'  a  man  of  parts,  even  of  elo- 
quence— indulge  only  in  harmless  and  stupid  plati- 
tudes? Why  does  he  verbally  pick  his  way  along  after 
dinner  as  gingerly  as  though  he  were  inspecting  a 
TNT  factory?  The  reason  is  ob\'ious;  he  represents 
sovereignt}'.  There  is  gunpowder  even  in  times  of 
peace  in  the  relations  of  friendly  powers.  The  rela- 
tions of  one  absolute  authoritj^  with  another  absolute 
authority  create  a  No  Man's  Land  between,  which 
may  already  be  full  of  old  shell  holes  and  your 
Ambassador  must  watch  his  steps. 

If  we  admit  that  the  fault  which  led  to  this  war 
cannot  be  charged  wholly  to  one  man  or  to  one  nation 
but  is  fundamental,  let  us  beware  of  assuming  that 
victory  corrects  that  fault.  It  does  nothing  of  the 
sort.  Neither  is  the  fault  corrected  merely  because 
Uberty-loving  men  now  control  the  destinies  of  the 
world.  Liberty-loving  men  can  correct  the  fault. 
But  will  they? 

PoUtical  leaders  everj'where  know  that  there  is  a 
widespread  demand  for  a  fundamental  corrective. 
The  response  to  that  demand  has  taken  the  form  of  a 
powerful  movement  which  aims  to  establish  a  League 
between  the  United  States  and  the  Allied  Powers. 
A  proposal  of  that  sort  will  hold  the  centre  of  the 
stage  at  the  Peace  Congress.     Can  any  mere  League  of 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory?  259 

Sovereign  States  discharge  the  present  duty  and  meet 
the  present  obUgations  of  free  men?  Will  it  correct 
the  fundamental  Fault?  I  think  it  may  rather  em- 
phasize the  fault;  and  for  that  conviction  I  believe  I 
can  give  substantial  reasons. 

Perhaps  the  frankest  concrete  statement  of  what  a 
League  of  Nations  is  and  must  be,  fundamentally, 
ever  put  out  is  contained  in  the  London  Spectator  of 
October  26. 

After  sajdng  that  the  fate  of  the  ci\'ilized  world  and 
of  all  human  progress  hangs  on  whether  we  take  the 
right  or  the  wrong  path  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of 
a  League  of  Nations,  it  submits  a  sketch  of  a  Con- 
stitution for  such  a  League. 

It  then  makes  the  amazing  statement  that  the  basis 
of  its  suggestion  is  "the  extraordinarily  able,  far-seeing, 
and  well-drawn  document  which,  to  the  great  credit  of 
the  English-speaking  race,  was  produced  by  the  Inde- 
pendent American  Colonies  directly  after  they  had 
freed  themselves  from  the  control  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment". 

By  this  the  Spectator  means  not  our  Federal  Con- 
stitution, but  the  Articles  of  Confederation  drawn  in 
1777,  adopted  in  1781  and  abandoned  in  1789. 

At  first  blush  this  statement  is  a  facer.  An  Ameri- 
can can  hardly  read  without  anger  the  suggestion  that 
we  can  now  save  the  world  by  a  plan  which  we  have 
already  tried  out,  a  plan  which  was  so  impotent  in 
practice  that  the  government  created  by  it  lost  first 
the  respect  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  then  the  respect 
of  the  constituent  states,  and  then  its  own  self-respect. 
Our  fathers  had  to  abandon  it  to  preserve  their  liberties. 

But  while  the  suggestion  is  shocking,  it  is  useful.     It 


260  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

flashes  upon  our  consciousness  as  almost  no  other 
illustration  could  just  what  is  meant  by  a  League  of 
Sovereignties,  and  drives  home  the  insufficiency  and 
danger  of  any  such  plan. 

Observe  the  first  paragraph  in  the  Spectator's  pro- 
posed Constitution:  , 

Only  sovereign  states  are  entitled  to  be  members 
of  the  League  and  each  member  retains  its  sover- 
eignty, freedom  and  independence. 

That  is  the  essence  of  our  old  Articles  of  Confedera- 
tion, and  the  chief  cause  of  the  Confederation's  failure. 
Observe  now  the  opening  words  in  the  Preamble  of 
our  Federal  Constitution: 

"We,  the  people." 
Here  you  have  two  great  systems  under  which  states 
may  unite:  the  first  is  Confederation,  the  second  is 
Federation.     It  has  been  our  high  pri\'ilege  to  test  both. 

In  the  first  system  the  units  are  states,  under  the 
Spectator's  plan  sovereign  states;  as  the  thirteen 
states  claimed  to  be  under  our  Confederation; 

In  the  second  the  units  are  individuals  on  whom  the 
government  acts  directly; 

In  the  first  no  effective  court  for  the  adjudication  of 
questions  now  non- justiciable  is  possible; 

In  the  second  effective  courts  are  at  once  created  and 
non-justiciable  questions  disappear; 

From  a  government  formed  under  the  first  a  partici- 
pating state  may  retire; 

From  a  government  formed  under  the  second  no 
state  may  retire  except  by  successful  rebelHon; 

Government  under  the  first  can  have  no  real  power 
of  taxation ; 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory?  261 

Government  under  the  second  must  have  full  power 
of  taxation; 

All  governments  formed  under  the  first  have  been 
impotent  and  ephemeral; 

This  government,  founded  under  the  second,  is  one 
hundred  and  twenty-nine  years  old  and  never  so 
strong  as  now. 

To  ask  free  men  who  know  history,  when  faced  with 
problems  singularly  like  the  problems  our  fathers  faced 
in  1788  and  1789,  to  adopt  as  the  basis  of  world  sanity 
and  peace,  the  principles  of  the  Confederation  rather 
than  the  principles  of  our  Constitution  is  almost  as 
grotesque  and  reactionary  as  it  would  be  to  ask  us  now 
to  tear  up  the  Federal  Constitution  itself. 

Having  slain  autocracy  shall  free  men  now  destroy 
the  system  that  gave  irresponsible  authority  its  oppor- 
tunity, its  incentive?  Or  shall  the  free  nations  of  the 
world  enter  into  the  same  old  competition  in  a  different 
form?  Shall  w'e  separate  from  our  Allies;  re-erect  the 
old  barriers;  reconstruct  the  economic  machine-gun 
nests  called  tariffs;  call  up  all  the  old  prejudices;  re- 
habilitate the  old  fears;  limp  off  each  to  its  own  bit  of 
earth;  reassert  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  sover- 
eignty and  proceed  to  get  ready  for  the  next  war? 
"Ah",  says  the  advocate  of  a  League,  "that  is  just 
what  we  propose  to  prevent."  I  answer  that  a  League 
of  Sovereignties  not  only  will  not  prevent  all  that; 
it  will  compel  it.  To  qualify  as  a  member  of  such  a 
League  a  state  must  be  sovereign  and  must  act  as  a 
sovereignty;  that  means  the  dead-line  of  frontiers,  and 
tariffs,  and  all  the  ancient  fears  and  prejudices,  and 
continued  preparation  for  war.  With  or  without  a 
League  the  United  States  and  the  Allies  by  the  sheer 


262  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

centrifugal  force  of  Sovereignty  will  rapidly  revert  to 
the  status  quo.  The  only  alternative  is  the  alternative 
that  our  fathers  faced  and  accepted  in  1789:  Federa- 
tion, 

It  is  clear,  if  we  would  save  ourselves  alive,  that  we 
must  do  one  of  two  things :  either  arm  to  the  teeth  and 
be  ready  by  land  and  by  sea  and  in  the  air — and  every 
other  considerable  power  must  do  the  same  thing;  or 
as  between  ourselves  and  Great  Britain  at  least,  we 
must  qualify  the  Doctrine  of  Sovereignty.  As  long  as 
the  great  nations  preserve  full  sovereignty  none  can 
disarm.     None  would  dare  to. 

Already  a  semi-official  statement  has  been  made  that 
in  any  event  Great  Britain  will  not  surrender  control 
of  the  seas.  Who  under  existing  proposals  will  say 
that  she  could  safely  take  any  other  position?  If  she 
surrenders  control  of  the  seas  to  a  mere  loose  League, 
the  members  of  which  retain  their  full  sovereignty,  she 
imperils  the  liberties  of  the  world.  If  she  alone  main- 
tains supremacy  of  the  seas,  that  ought  to  end  all  dis- 
cussion of  any  proposed  League,  because  a  compact 
preceded  by  a  concession  of  overwhelming  power  to 
one  of  the  contracting  parties  would  be  no  compact  at 
all.  If  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  were 
federated,  the  questions  that  lie  on  the  seas  would 
disappear  as  between  them  and  would  substantially 
disappear  from  the  world,  because  that  federation 
w^ould  easily  be  master  of  war. 

The  nations  of  the  earth,  even  the  free  nations,  are 
now  exactly  like  a  group  of  naturally  peaceable,  law- 
abiding  men  in  a  frontier  town  where  there  is  no  real 
law.  Each  walks  about  armed,  with  his  gun-hand 
free.     He  has  no  desire  to  shoot,  but  he  knows  that 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory?  263 

someone  will  shoot  sooner  or  later,  and  when  he  hears 
that  there  is  an  outlaw  around  he  puts  on  another  gun. 
He  knows  that  the  man  who  shoots  first  has  an  advan- 
tage. The  pistol  shot  that  shall  set  that  town  aflame, 
as  the  pistol  shot  in  Sarajevo  set  the  world  on  fire, 
may  come  from  a  perfectly  respectable  man  over  some 
question  of  honor,  or  someone  may  have  a  fit  of  nerves 
and  shoot,  or  a  gun  may  accidentally  be  discharged — 
in  any  one  of  these  contingencies  each  knows  that  the 
shooting  will  instantly  become  general. 

Put  those  same  men  in  relation  where  law  rules,  where 
no  questions  of  "honor"  are  tolerated,  where  no  differ- 
ences can  arise  that  are  non-justiciable,  and  none  of 
them  would  think  of  shooting,  indeed  none  could  be- 
cause none  would  carry  a  gun.  The  outlaw  would 
automatically  disappear  from  that  community. 

Government  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation — 
which  was  a  true  League  of  Nations — gives  us  a  perfect 
historic  background;  here  were  thirteen  states  more  or 
less  armed,  eyeing  each  other  sharply,  with  their  gun- 
hands  free.  Each  state  claimed  to  be  sovereign,  each 
levied  tariffs,  each  robbed  its  neighbors  as  it  could, 
each  cordially  hated  all  the  others  and  did  just  what  a 
Sovereign  State  might  be  expected  to  do  as  a  member 
of  a  Confederation.  Under  those  conditions  as  soon 
as  the  unifying  pressure  of  war  was  removed  govern- 
ment became  a  travesty  and  narrowly  escaped  being  a 
tragedy. 

These  same  States,  when  they  ceased  to  be  a  League, 
when  they  became  a  Federation,  give  us  another 
historic  background  and  a  startling  contrast.  Govern- 
ment at  once  became  effective;  questions  of  ''honor" 
disappeared;  national  credit  was  established,  and  in- 


264  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

side  of  two  years  the  thirteen  original  commonwealths 
began  that  expansion  which  has  since  added  thirty-five 
stars  to  the  original  flag. 

Here  you  have  the  problem  and  its  solution.  Here 
you  have  the  necessary  fundamental  change.  Here 
you  have  the  fundamental  fault  corrected.  The  people 
everj^vhere  demand  a  program  which  will  banish  such 
wars  as  this.     It  is  indeed  time  to  ask: 

What  shall  we  do  with  victory? 

Shall  we  go  on  carrying  guns?  Or  within  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  at  least — and  why  not  within  the  Anglo- 
Latin  world — -shall  we  institute  the  reign  of  law? 

Shall  we  go  on  regarding  Canadians,  for  example,  as 
potential  enemies?  Or  shall  we  smash  the  barriers  that 
divide  the  Anglo-Saxon  world?  We  w^ere  di\'ided  one 
hundred  and  forty-two  years  ago  by  the  act  of  a  mad 
German  King.  If  another  mad  German  King  should  be 
instrumental  in  reuniting  us  it  might  go  far  to  rescue 
the  reputation  of  both  Kings  from  utter  infamy. 

What  does  the  widespread  movement  for  a  League 
rather  than  for  a  Federation  of  Nations  really  mean? 
Its  advocates  are  patriots.  Some  of  them  are  great 
patriots.  They  include  William  H.  Taft,  Lloyd  George, 
Viscounts  Grey  and  Bryce  and  President  Wilson.  Once 
and  once  only  has  the  President  sounded  the  prophetic 
note,  once  and  once  only,  has  he  advocated  federation. 
That  was  in  his  address  to  the  Congress,  December  4, 
1917.  None  of  the  others  named,  within  my  know- 
ledge, has  ever  risen  to  the  height  touched  by  ]Mr. 
Wilson  in  that  address. 

Does  not  this  movement  reveal  a  consciousness  on 
the  part  of  its  advocates  that  unqualified  nationality 
is  now  a  menace?     Isn't  it  an  admission  that  Sover- 


What  Shall  We  Do  With  Victory?  265 

eignty  is  the  old  bottle  into  which  we  are  otherwise 
obliged  to  pour  the  new  wine  of  modern  life?  Isn't  it 
also  a  confession,  a  less  than  frank  confession,  that  we 
know  what  ought  to  be  done  and  are  afraid  to  do  it? 
Isn't  it  a  compromise,  a  bit  of  patchwork?  Will  it  not 
certainly  fail  now  as  it  failed  when  we  tried  it  earlier? 

This  is  the  hour  for  action.  Not  again  in  a  century 
unless  we  grasp  this  opportunity  will  the  United  States 
and  the  British  Empire  be  so  near  each  other.  Not 
again  in  a  century  shall  we  otherwise  see  Britain  and 
ourselves  even  temporarily  yielding  sovereignty  to 
France. 

A  Military  League  of  Nations  gave  us  the  confusion 
and  disaster  that  so  cruelly  punished  the  Allies  up  to 
the  hour  when  President  Wilson  insisted  on  a  unified 
command  under  Foch.  A  temporary  Federation  of 
military  power  quickly  gave  us  victory. 

vSince  Alexander  Hamilton  thundered  for  the  Con- 
stitution in  Poughkeepsie,  since  INIarshall  and  Madison 
pleaded  for  the  Constitution  in  Richmond,  liberty- 
loving  men  have  faced  no  such  crisis  and  opportunity 
as  this. 

What  shall  we  do  with  victory? 

Shall  we  make  German}^  pay?     Yes. 

But  there  are  crimes  that  cannot  be  punished  ade- 
quately and  Germany  has  committed  them.  There 
are  losses  that  are  absolute. 

Shall  we  restore  Alsace  and  Lorraine  to  France  and 
end  the  ambitions  of  irresponsible  power?     Yes. 

But  having  done  that  and  having  established  all  the 
points  on  which  the  armistice  was  based,  what  have 
we  really  achieved? 

Have  we  satisfied  the  demands  of  our  crusaders? 


266  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Have  we  answered  the  imperative  FOR  WHAT? 
of  the  people? 

Have  we  corrected  any  fundamental  fault  in  the 
relations  of  nations? 

Have  w^e  eliminated  non- justiciable  questions? 

Have  we  created  any  competent  court  where  issues 
that  otherwise  mean  war  can  be  judicially  determined? 

Have  we  been  true  to  our  own  great  traditions? 

I  think  not. 

Let  us  hope  that  President  Wilson  at  the  peace  table 
or  afterwards  will  return  to  his  great  utterance  of 
December  4,  1917,  and  insist  as  he  then  did  that  the 
post-bellum  partnership  of  free  nations,  to  use  his 
exact  words:  "  *  *  *  must  be  a  partnership  of 
peoples,  not  a  mere  partnership  of  governments", —  a 
Federation  in  other  words,  and  not  a  Confederation. 
.  A  post-bellum  League  of  Sovereign  States  would 
lead  us  back  and  not  forw^ard,  it  would  lead  toward 
confusion  and  not  toward  order.  Before  we  join 
another  Confederation  we  must  forget  or  repudiate 
about  the  brightest  page  in  our  history. 

A  post-bellum  Federation,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world 
at  least, — and  why  not  of  the  Anglo-Latin  w^orld? — 
would  take  its  inspiration  from  Independence  Hall  and 
not  from  Potsdam;  it  would  react  to  the  philosophy  of 
the  Federalist  and  not  to  the  philosophy  of  Bernhardi ; 
it  would  within  that  w^orld  correct  the  fundamental 
fault;  it  would  solve  their  problems  on  the  seas;  it 
would  create  between  the  federated  states  a  court 
in  which  issues  that  otherwise  mean  war  could  be 
adjudicated;  it  would  move  the  world  away  from  the 
shambles  of  sovereignty  and  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
day  when  "the  war  drum  throbs  no  longer  and  the 
battle  flags  are  furled". 


THANKSGIVING: 
A  RELIGIOUS  FESTIVAL 


FROM  THE  NYLIC  AGENTS'  BULLETIN,  NOV.  23,  1918. 


N  THE  twenty-eighth  day  of  this  month,  as 
indicated  by  President  Wilson,  the  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  in  accordance  with 
their  reUgious  faith,  each  group  in  its  own 
place  and  way  will  render  thanks  for  the 
speedy  ending  of  the  great  war. 

It  is  difficult  to  make  our  thank-offering  seem  un- 
selfish.   We  have  relatively  suffered  so  little. 

We  are  thankful  for  the  happy  circumstance  that 
placed  us  in  the  Western  world  so  far  away  from  the 
ambitions  of  Czars  and  Kaisers.  We  are  thankful  for 
our  great  forebears,  who  so  wisely  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  Repubhc  that  we  were  a  united  and  liberty- 
loving  people  when  the  great  crisis  came. 

We  are  thankful  that  for  a  hundred  years  hberty- 
lo\dng  men  and  women  had  come  to  us  from  all  the 
earth  and  swelled  our  man-power  and  our  material 
wealth  to  unmatched  figures. 

We  are  thankful  that  a  tempest  of  righteous  wrath 
swept  over  us  when  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  when 
Edith  Cavell  was  shot. 

We  are  thankful  that  when  after  infinite  forbearance 
our  President  called  us  to  arms,  the  response  was  so 
complete  and  so  undivided. 

207 


268  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

We  are  thankful  that  we  are  the  fathers  and  mothers 
and  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  boys  who  stopped  the 
Hun  at  Chateau-Thierrj^  and  through  the  Argonne 
Forest  drove  back  the  Kaiser's  picked  troops  and  broke 
his  Une. 

We  are  proud  that  half-trained  boys  coming  from 
the  homes  of  free  men  are  able  to  hold  and  beat  back 
the  trained  troops  of  militarism. 

We  are  thankful  that  our  boj^s  were  clean  fighters, 
that  the  children  love  them,  that  women  were  safe 
with  them. 

We  are  thankful  because  in  a  supreme  test  all  our 
fondest  beliefs  as  to  what  makes  a  sound  citizenry  were 
sustained,  because  the  descendants  of  the  men  who 
fought  at  Lexington  and  Yorktown  showed  themselves 
worthy  of  their  great  sires. 

We  are  proud  that  we  entered  the  war  for  no  selfish 
motive,  glad  that  bestiality  and  cruelty  and  lying  and 
sordid  aims  could  rouse  us  to  righteous  wrath  and  send 
us  across  three  thousand  miles  of  water  to  stand  in 
defense  of  human  rights. 

We  mourn  with  those  who  mourn  in  our  own  and  in 
all  lands. 

But  chiefly  we  are  thankful  because  of  this: 

Men  who  love  liberty  are  for  the  first  time  in 
control  of  the  destinies  of  the  world. 

This  creates  a  great  opportunity  and  we  are  thankful 
that  we,  at  a  critical  time,  were  able  to  strike  one  of 
the  decisive  blows  that  created  this  unprecedented 
condition. 

We  have  paid  a  heavy  price,  but  very  little  when 
compared  with  what  France  and  Belgium  and  Serbia 


Thanksgiving:  A  Religious  Festival  269 

and  Poland  and  Armenia  have  paid — vastly  less  than 
Italy  and  the  British  Empire  have  paid. 

We  have  tried  to  express  our  obligation  to  those  who 
have  suffered  in  our  stead,  through  the  Red  Cross  and 
the  other  relief  organizations.  As  a  country  we  have 
given  privately  several  hundred  million  dollars  for  re- 
lief, and  through  our  Government  we  have  fed  the 
hungry  and  clothed  the  naked.  All  this  is  a  form  of 
thanks,  inadequate,  but  something. 

Let  us  hope  that  a  year  hence  when  the  nations  have 
faced  their  duty  and  opportunity,  when  they  have  at 
least  begun  the  reorganization  of  the  world,  we  may 
be  even  more  thankful  because  the  people  of  the  earth 
have  been  so  united  that  neither  militarism  nor  the 
foolish  pride  of  republics  can  ever  again  sow  the  earth 
with  death. 


THE   PROPOSED   LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


AN  ADDRESS  AT  THE  FIFTIETH  ANNIVERSARY 

OF  THE  FOUNDING  OF  ALPHA  OF  NEW  JERSEY,  PHI  BETA  KAPPA 

RUTGERS  COLLEGE,  FEBRUARY  22,  1919 


CONSTITUTION  for  a  League  of  Nations 
has  at  last  been  submitted  to  the  world. 
The  New  York  Sun  in  its  issue  of 
February  15  stated  in  a  paragraph  the 
problem  which  the  proposed  constitution 

undertakes  to  solve  and  the  reaction  of  the  average 

man  to  the  solution  proposed.    It  said: 

".  .  .  .  every  right-minded  man  or  woman  in  this  re- 
pubUc  would  hail  with  joy  and  support  with  eagerness  any 
workable  plan  for  the  prevention  of  the  horrors  of  war  not 
involving  the  surrender  of  that  which  to  the  American  heart 
is  dearer  and  more  desirable  even  than  world  peace  itself, 
namely,  our  unimpaired  national  sovereignty,  our  com- 
plete independence  of  supergovernment  of  any  sort,  our 
freedom  of  initiative  in  all  matters  affecting  our  national 
interests,  our  right  to  consider  America  first." 

Unimpaired  national  sovereignty,  complete  inde- 
pendence of  any  sort  of  supergovernment,  freedom  of 
initiative  in  all  matters  of  national  interest,  the  right 
to  consider  one's  country  first  are  no  dearer  to  Amer- 
icans than  they  are  to  Englishmen,  to  Frenchmen,  to 
Italians  and  to  the  Japanese.  Let  it  be  stated  at  the 
outset  that  neither  we  nor  the  EngHsh  nor  the  French 
nor  the  Italians  nor  the  Japs  can  preserve  these  pre- 
rogatives in  their  entirety  and  at  the  same  time  avoid 

270 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  271 

the  horrors  of  war.  That  is  a  very  brief  statement  of 
the  whole  case.  Conversely"  the  price  of  peace  is 
supposed  to  be  the  entire  loss  of  these  prerogatives. 
On  that  fiction — because  it  is  a  fiction — militarism  has 
flourished,  sovereignty  has  became  a  fetish.  Peace 
demands  no  such  price.  The  things  that  must  be 
surrendered  to  achieve  lasting  peace,  are  false  pride, 
fear,  intolerance,  selfishness. 

Let  me  give  a  simple  but  concrete  illustration.  At 
the  corner  of  42d  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York 
City  there  is  at  most  hours  of  the  day  tremendous 
pressure  of  traffic.  Traffic  is  controlled  and  expedited, 
accidents  and  confusion  are  avoided  by  a  traffic  police- 
man. He  controls  traffic  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  or 
by  blowing  a  whistle;  he  controls  it  because  the  men 
who  are  crowding  to  get  past  that  corner  know  that 
behind  the  wave  of  the  hand  stands  the  power  of  the 
municipality,  the  City  of  New  York,  a  corporation 
created  by  the  people  who  use  the  streets,  and  con- 
trolled by  them  sometvnes.  No  driver  of  a  car 
surrenders  his  self-respect  or  his  individual  initiative 
by  obeying  that  wave  of  the  hand.  In  order  to  keep 
traffic  moving  the  driver,  through  the  policeman, 
simply  recognizes  the  rights  of  others.  Remove  that 
control  at  almost  any  time  of  the  day  for  a  period  of 
ten  minutes  and  we  all  know  what  would  happen. 
There  would  be  confusion,  collision,,  probable  loss  of 
life  and  an  utter  congestion  and  stoppage  of  traffic. 
The  great  thoroughfares  of  the  world  are  in  these  days 
as  crowded  as  is  the  intersection  of  these  two  great 
streets.  The  nations  that  increasingly  use  these  high- 
ways are  naturally  as  indifferent  to  the  rights  of  others 
as  the  ordinary  chauffeur  is.     Each  is  thinking  first 


272  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

of  its  own  rights  and  needs  and  ambitions  and  sov- 
ereignty. International  crossroads  which  are  now 
substantially  uncontrolled  must  be  controlled  for 
exactly  the  same  reason  that  New  York  traffic  must  be 
controlled.  Any  plan  which  aims  to  avoid  war  but 
does  not  control  these  highways  is  certain  to  fail. 
By  the  highways  of  the  world,  I  mean  the  con- 
tact of  nation  with  nation,  of  people  with  people. 
These  highways  are  crowded  because  the  ends  of  the 
earth  have  fallen  together.  There  are  no  foreign  lands. 
War,  wherever  it  begins  hereafter,  will  almost  certainly 
sweep  over  the  whole  earth.  The  days  of  isolation  are 
over.  Between  states  there  are  no  dreamy  sunlit 
spaces,  no  great  dividing  rivers,  no  towering  mountain 
ranges,  no  impassable  deserts,  no  vast  mysterious 
oceans.  Whether  we  will  or  no  we  are  forced  onto 
these  highways;  our  duty  and  destiny  place  us  there. 
We  take  with  us  when  we  fare  forth  our  prejudices,  our 
fears,  our  ignorance,  our  superciliousness,  our  national 
vanities.  The  other  travelers  who  jostle  us  carry  the 
same  sort  of  luggage.  Each  has  been  taught  to  believe 
that  the  preservation  of  the  prerogatives  named  by 
the  Sun  is  the  first  duty  of  every  nation.  Only  a 
hermit  people  could  preserve  these  prerogatives  now. 
The  day  of  hermit  states  and  hermit  statesmanship 
has  passed.  Take  that  message  to  Washington!  Proper 
control  of  these  highways  will  no  more  invade  the 
essential  prerogatives  of  states  than  the  policeman 
when  he  controls  street  traffic  endangers  or  invades 
the  natural  rights  of  chauffeurs. 

Because  of  the  elemental  fears  voiced  by  the  Su?}, 
the  United  States  Senate  will  probably  reject  or  refuse 
to  concur  in  this  Constitution  as  now  offered.     It  will 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  273 

be  rejected  amongst  other  reasons  because  of  the  belief 
that  it  violates  the  provisions  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution. 

A  charter  under  which  the  self-governing  nations  of 
the  world  are  to  live  in  peace  must  necessarily  involve 
modifications  of  the  present  fundamental  laws  of  sig- 
natory states  having  written  constitutions.  There  is 
already  a  sharp  difference  of  opinion  here  as  to  whether 
the  document  worked  out  by  President  Wilson  and  his 
associates  in  Paris  calls  for  modifications  in  our  funda- 
mental law.  If  it  doesn't,  then  it  will  achieve  nothing. 
If  it  does,  it  cannot  be  adopted  on  our  behalf  by  a 
two-thirds  vote  of  the  Senate.  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  cannot  be  changed  in  that  way.  To 
me  it  is  clear  that  President  Wilson  and  his  associates 
sought  to  avoid  the  necessities  of  any  change  in  the 
constitutions  of  signatory  countries,  and  in  doing  this 
they  have  avoided  the  real  issue.  They  have  under- 
taken to  place  a  policeman  at  the  crossroads  of  the 
world;  but  without  such  constitutional  changes  in  the 
signatory  countries  that  the  policeman  can  trace  his 
authority  back  to  the  people,  all  those  who  use  the 
world  highways  will  quickly  recognize  that  there  is  no 
sufficient  power  back  of  the  wave  of  his  hand,  and 
after  a  little  his  signal  will  be  entirely  disregarded. 

These  reflections  do  not  lead  to  any  very  optimistic 
conclusion.  They  imply  that  the  plan  submitted  while 
probably  insufficient  is  nevertheless  so  radical  that  our 
people  through  their  representatives  in  the  Senate  will 
not  accept  even  that.  People  sometimes  will  accept  a 
very  radical  idea,  if  it  clearly  solves  a  perplexing  prob- 
lem; and  again  will  reject  a  less  radical  idea  on  the  plea 
that  it  is  too  radical,  because  it  does  not  clearly  give 


274  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

something  desirable  in  the  place  of  the  errors  it  pro- 
poses to  correct.  If  the  members  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  1787  in  Philadelphia  had  hmited 
themselves  to  the  things  which  they  were  commissioned 
to  do,  if  they  had  patched  up  the  old  Articles  of  Con- 
federation and  presented  to  the  Thirteen  States  for 
ratification,  not  an  obviously  sufficient  plan,  but  merely 
more  weak  compromises,  it  is  altogether  probable  that 
their  work  would  have  been  rejected  because  it  was  too 
radical,  and  the  confusion  that  preceded  that  Congress 
would  have  gone  on  into  disaster. 

But  with  a  courage  so  splendid  that  men  have  ever 
since  wondered  at  it,  they  threw  aside  entirelj^  the  old 
instrument  of  government  and  presented  a  new  one 
which  did  not  modify  the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
but  did  gravely  modify  the  sovereignty  of  the  several 
states.  They  offered  a  new  government  of  which  the 
people  were  nevertheless  to  be  masters.  They  did  not 
destroy  either  sovereignty  or  freedom  of  initiative;  they 
transferred  both  to  a  larger  world.  They  did  not  de- 
stroy the  states ;  they  created  a  greater  state.  For  the 
limited  opportunities  of  weak  and  quarreling  states 
they  offered  the  unhmited  opportunities  of  a  great 
nation.  This  was  radical,  very  radical;  but  it  appealed 
to  the  imagination  of  men ;  it  brought  out  a  reaction  of 
a  new  sort.  That  new  instrument  of  government  was 
not  free  from  compromise,  in  fact  it  was  based  on 
compromise,  without  which  it  probably  could  not  have 
been  adopted.  But  fundamentally  it  struck  a  new 
and  a  great  note.  There  isn't  a  principle  in  this  pro- 
posed charter  that  wasn't  old  when  the  Congress  of 
1787  met.  Every  process  in  it  has  been  tested  and 
long  since  found  wanting. 


The  Pro-posed  League  of  Nations  275 

The  great  thing  in  our  Federal  Constitution,  which 
distinguishes  it  from  all  other  charters,  which  struck 
the  imagination  of  men  and  has  been  the  prime  cause 
of  its  success,  is  entirely  absent  from  the  proposed 
Constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations.  The  Federal 
Constitution  created  a  government  which  acts  directly 
on  the  individual  and  only  incidentally  on  the  states, 
and  is,  therefore,  the  individual's  government  and 
not  a  supergovernment  at  all.  The  proposed  Con- 
stitution of  the  League  does  not  attempt  to  do  this. 
The  units  of  this  League  are  to  be  sovereignties, 
acting  as  sovereignties,  each  preserving  unimpaired  its 
national  prerogatives,  its  complete  independence;  and 
notwithstanding  certain  stipulations  about  delaying 
war,  economic  pressure,  etc.,  each  in  the  last  analysis 
will  preserve  its  freedom  of  initiative.  Any  body  of 
men  which  controlled  sovereignties  as  such  would  be  a 
real  supergovernment  and  that  would  be  intolerable. 
The  stipulations  in  this  proposed  charter  which  require 
certain  seeming  concessions  and  binding  agreements 
between  sovereign  states  are  sufficiently  radical  to 
create  alarm  but  not  strong  enough  to  bring  assurance. 
This  will  undoubtedly  cause  it  to  be  modified  and 
perhaps  finally  rejected;  whereas  if  the  instrument  were 
stronger,  if  it  clearly  and  with  justice  between  the 
signatories  controlled  the  forces  that  now  mean  war 
the  people  of  the  self-governing  nations  might  readily 
force  its  adoption.  In  other  words  if  it  is  finally 
rejected  the  real  reason  for  that  action  will  be  that  the 
instrument  is  too  weak. 

The  conclusion  from  all  this  is  that  the  agony  and 
suffering  of  this  unprecedented  war  have  taught  our 
leaders  and  the  leaders  of  other  nations  very  little, 


276  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

The  elemental  appeal  of  sovereignty  is  still  paramount 
here  and  probably  in  all  the  nations.  Woodrow  Wilson 
is  obviously  not  a  George  Washington,  Lloyd  George 
is  clearly  not  an  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  Clemenceau 
is  neither  a  James  Aladison  nor  a  John  Marshall.  At 
this  great  crisis  of  affairs  the  world  has  no  leaders  com- 
parable to  those  who  led  the  Thirteen  States  in  1787. 
Then  the  leadership  came  from  the  top.  It  looks  now 
as  though  the  leadership  that  is  to  save  the  world  and 
human  Hberty  will  ultimately  come  from  the  masses. 
Meantime  the  tragedy  of  war  will  be  repeated  and 
again  repeated  with  ever-increasing  horrors. 
The  outstanding  fact  of  the  hour  is  this: 
In  the  second  great  crisis  of  representative  and  free 
government — the  first  having  been  reached  in  1787, 
and  successfully  passed  in  1789 — the  self-governing 
people  of  the  world  lack  leaders.  The  great  opportunity 
is  passing.  Where  we  expected  bold  and  constructive 
leadership  we  have  only  methods  that  have  already 
been  tested  and  rejected.  The  League  proposed  will 
achieve  little  if  any  more  than  the  Hague  Tribunal 
achieved.  Fundamentally  it  is  the  same  idea;  funda- 
mentally it  is  our  old  Articles  of  Confederation  and 
utterly  fails  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  hour. 

The  people  of  the  world  have  waited  patiently,  not 
more  for  the  details  of  what  is  to  be  done  to  the  twin 
criminals,  Germany  and  Turkey,  than  for  the  details 
of  the  New  Plan  that  shall  end  war.  The  people  have 
understood  all  along  that  whatever  the  punishment 
meted  out  to  Germany,  little  in  the  long  run  would  be 
gained  unless  the  fundamental  conditions  which  gave 
Germany  her  opportunity  and  incentive  were  changed. 
This  charter  changes  nothing  fundamental.    We  might 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  277 

# 

have  anticipated  that  from  such  reports  as  previously 
came  to  us.  The  methods  of  the  Paris  Congress  of  1919 
seem  not  greatly  different  from  the  methods  of  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815.  There  have  been  fewer 
state  carriages,  less  gold  lace,  possibly  a  little  more 
freedom  of  speech,  but  no  real  advance.  Consider  in 
how  many  ways  these  two  Congresses  are  strikingly 
alike  and  at  the  same  time  what  strange  contradictions 
have  been  brought  about  through  the  whirligig  of  time : 
They  deal  now  with  the  Kaiser  and  his  works;  their 
predecessors  dealt  with  Napoleon  and  his  works.  Both 
approached  their  tasks  bound  by  the  medieval  rules 
of  sovereignty.  The  groupings  of  the  nations  are 
different.  Now  the  great  offender  is  a  German;  then 
he  was  a  Frenchman.  The  decisive  blow  at  Waterloo 
was  struck  by  a  German.  The  Bliicher  of  this  war  was 
an  American  named  Pershing,  who  also  arrived  just 
in  time. 

Because  of  his  speech  to  the  Congress  on  the  fourth 
of  December,  1917,  it  is  only  justice  to  President  Wilson 
to  assume  that  in  his  struggle  for  a  charter  he  tried  to 
get  something  adequate.  In  that  address  he  demanded 
"a  partnership  of  peoples,  not  a  mere  partnership  of 
governments", — a  Federation  not  a  Confederation.  In 
this  Charter  he  does  not  offer  us  a  Federation ;  whether 
or  not  he  advocated  that  plan  will  probably  be  known 
only  when  the  records  of  this  Peace  Congress  are  un- 
locked. 

Can  two  solid  bodies  occupy  the  same  space  at  the 
same  time?  Can  five  great  and  forty  odd  smaller 
absolute  authorities  exist  on  this  little  globe  without 
war?  The  answer  to  the  last  question  must  be  as 
unequivocal  as  the  answer  to  the  first.    As  well  have 


278  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

two  or  three  laws  of  gravitation  and  then  hope  not  to 
wreck  the  universe.  If  two  sohd  bodies  cannot  occupy 
the  same  space  at  the  same  time  then  the  peace  dele- 
gates in  trying  at  once  to  preserve  existing  sovereignties 
and  secure  peace  were  merely  fussing  with  worn-out 
machinery'.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  peace  delegates  in 
this  charter  propose  that  two  (perhaps  five)  solid  bodies 
shall  hereafter  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time. 
Of  course  it  can't  be  done.  Naturally  no  sovereignty 
will  put  itself  and  its  future  either  politically  or 
economically  in  the  power  of  another  sovereignty; 
that  would  be  to  jump  into  space. 

But  while  no  people  will  yield  their  sovereignty  to 
another  nation,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  will  not 
yield  something  to  a  new  authority  in  whose  creation 
and  control  they  have  a  just  part.  The  code  duello 
ended  when  men  handed  their  duelling  pistols  not  to 
each  other  but  to  a  court  which  they  themselves 
created,  whose  authority  they  themselves  supported, 
a  court  behind  which  stood  their  own  sheriff. 

The  people  of  New  York  did  not  surrender  sov- 
ereignty to  the  people  of  ^^irginia,  nor  did  the  people 
of  Virginia  surrender  sovereignty  to  the  people  of  New 
York,  vrhen  both  joined  in  the  creation  of  the  Federal 
Government. 

When  President  Wilson  closed  the  reading  to  the 
Congress  of  the  terms  of  the  armistice,  he  di'amatically 
said :  "  The  war  thus  comes  to  an  end. "  He  should  have 
added:  ''And  here  beginneth  the  industrial  war — in 
preparation  for  the  greater  war  that  is  to  come." 

The  law  of  self-preservation,  misapplied  it  is  true, 
perverted,  selfishly  twisted,  but  dominant  and  in- 
exorable, was  the  cause  of  the  great  military  struggle 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  279 

now  closing.  The  same  law  blindly  followed  is  con- 
fusing the  men  who  are  attempting  to  create  better 
international  relations  and  is  even  now  inaugurating 
an  economic  war  the  end  of  which  no  man  can  foresee. 
TMiile  we  are  planning  the  end  of  wars  and  expecting 
the  birth  of  a  new  world,  we  read  such  matter  as  this 
in  the  editorial  page  of  the  New  York  Sim  on  Feb- 
ruary seventh: 

"But  the  plain  truth  is  it  is  no  business  of  ours  if  Great 
Britain  needs  or  wishes  to  shut  foreign  goods  out  of  its  home 
markets;  it  is  the  business  of  the  people  of  the  United  King- 
dom. The  same  holds  as  to  France.  It  holds  as  to  Itah'. 
It  holds  as  to  any  nation  whether  it  fought  alongside  us  in 
the  war  or  fought  against  us." 

And  again  the  Sun  says : 

"Big  Power  or  Little  Power,  military'  foe  or  miUtary  friend, 
Orient  or  Occident,  the  nation's  first  duty  is  to  itself.  The 
first  need  is  to  feed  its  own.    The  first  law  is  to  survive." 

And  further  the  Sun  says : 

"Nothing  that  can  be  spoken  out  of  the  mouth  of  a  super- 
lative visionary,  nothing  that  can  be  wTitten  into  the 
articles  of  the  Peace  Conference,  nothing  that  can  be  in- 
jected into  the  vaporings  of  a  League  of  Nations,  will  ever 
nullify  the  supreme  law  of  self-preservation.  Nothing  can." 

Was  it  then  "no  business  of  ours"  or  of  Great  Brit- 
ain's that  Germany  was  plainly  building  a  colossal 
war  machine?  Was  it  no  business  of  ours  that  the 
Kaiser  was  more  medieval  than  Attila;  no  business  of 
ours  that  German  leaders  everywhere  justified  and 
glorified  war  and  drank  always  to  "The  Day"?  We 
found  out  that  it  was  our  business  after  all.  To  settle 
that  business  we  sent  2,000,000  men  over  seas,  lost 
100,000  of  our  3^outh,  and  contracted  a  debt  that  our 
grand-children  may  not  see  wholly  liquidated.     But 


280  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

under  the  existing  relations  of  sovereign  states  the 
German  menace  was  held  to  be  no  business  of  ours. 
Because  of  Germany's  unimpaired  sovereignty^,  her 
complete  independence  of  any  control,  her  freedom  of 
initiative  in  all  matters  affecting  her  national  in- 
terests, her  right  to  consider  Germany  first,  (the  Sun's 
sacred  prerogatives  although  made  in  Germany)  no 
other  nation  could  interfere  while  she  openly  made 
these  preparations.  It  became  our  business  only  when 
the  tragedy  moved  on  to  the  Fifth  Act  and  filled  the 
world  with  mourning. 

In  the  light  of  this  terrible  experience  shall  we  con- 
tinue to  say  that  nothing  can  be  spoken  or  wTitten  into 
the  articles  of  the  Peace  Conference  or  injected  into 
the  relations  of  states  that  will  ever  nullify  the  supreme 
law  of  self-preservation?  That  is  what  the  cave  man 
once  believed,  but  he  found  after  a  while  that  life  was 
better  and  safer  when  he  had  joined  his  family  with 
other  families,  and  he  found  a  larger  opportunity  still 
by  creating  a  clan,  and  still  greater  surety  by  creating 
a  tribe,  and  an  existence  that  was  still  fairer  and  more 
worth  while  by  creating  a  nation. 

The  economic  philosophy  of  the  New  York  Sun  is  as 
savage  as  the  political  philosophy  of  the  Kaiser.  It 
starts  with  the  same  premiss  and  ends  with  the  same 
conclusion :  WAR ;  but  it  unquestionably  reflects  a  large 
body  of  public  opinion. 

Shocked  by  the  horrors  of  the  recent  struggle,  pa- 
triots and  statesmen  have  been  trying  to  formulate 
plans  through  which  there  shall  hereafter  be  no  recur- 
rence of  those  conditions.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  say 
that  their  discussions  have  been  futile  even  though 
they   have   not   been    bold,   even   though   they   have 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  281 

brought  forth  a  Plan  which  is  more  redolent  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century  than  of  the  Twentieth.  They  have 
had  a  very  large  educational  effect.  There  is  no  ex- 
planation of  the  welcome  which  President  Wilson  re- 
ceived from  the  masses  of  the  people  of  Europe  except 
that  they  believed  he  represented  some  plan  by 
which  the  nations  shall  hereafter  be  so  related  to 
each  other  that  the  horrors  which  they  have  just  en- 
dured can  never  be  repeated. 

The  agony  of  the  war  itself  and  the  peace  discus- 
sions that  have  grown  out  of  it  have  created  a  longing 
which  President  Wilson  at  times  seemed  to  interpret 
as  no  other  national  leader  did. 

Leagues  and  peace  societies  have  been  active  and 
numerous  since  the  war  began.  Most  of  the  pro- 
moters of  these  leagues  or  societies,  if  squarely  faced 
with  the  charge  that  their  plan  was  inadequate,  that  it 
did  not  modify  the  law  of  sovereignty,  which  is  the 
great  cause  of  war,  that  it  did  not  change  the  law  of 
the  jungle,  which  is  about  all  there  is  of  international 
law,  would  admit  the  charge.  "But"  they  answered 
"we  must  take  what  we  can  get;  a  post-bellum  pro- 
gram which  asks  the  great  nations  to  qualify  their 
sovereignty  could  never  be  adopted,  and  therefore  we 
are  fighting  for  something  that  we  feel  is  attainable." 
The  charter  before  us  is  clearly  the  product  of  that 
philosophy.  The  lessons  of  a  thousand  years  of  gov- 
ernment seem  to  have  made  little  impression.  The 
Peace  Commissioners  have  looked  at  facts  and  appar- 
ently have  not  understood  them.  The  unprecedented 
action  of  the  thirteen  American  States  in  1789  seems  to 
convey  no  object  lesson  to  the  world  leaders  in  1919. 

It  is  undoubtedly  a  calamity  that  no  group  of  strong 


282  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

men  came  forward  months  ago  with  a  clear  declara- 
tion that  a  new  power  (not  a  super-government)  must 
be  created  by  Great  Britain,  the  United  States  and 
France  at  least,  containing  wdthin  its  authority  and 
organization  a  court  before  which  certain  differences 
called  non-justiciable,  and  rarely  settled  except  on  the 
field  of  battle,  could  be  soundly  disposed  of.  That 
would  involve  exactly  such  a  transfer  of  sovereignty 
as  New  York  made  when  it  entered  the  Federal  Union. 
If  such  an  arrangement  was  made  between  Great 
Britain,  France,  the  United  States  and  the  Dominions 
of  Great  Britain,  each  would  have  to  make  a  like 
transfer.  No  outstanding  Society  or  Peace  organiza- 
tion has  stood  clearly  for  that  idea. 

The  proposed  charter  would  settle  these  problems 
by  arbitration  and  councils  of  conciliation.  But  arbi- 
tration and  conciliation  are  not  sufficient.  Differences 
between  New  York  and  Massachusetts  are  not  arbi- 
trated neither  are  they  settled  through  boards  of  con- 
ciliation; they  go  in  the  first  instance  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  and  its  judgment  is 
final. 

WTien  the  Kaiser,  his  military  and  naval  com- 
manders and  his  bankers,  decided  on  the  5th  of  July, 
1914,  to  bring  on  a  European  war,  they  were  perfectly 
consistent;  they  merely  translated  the  philosophy  of 
sovereignty  and  self-preservation  into  action.  In  re- 
verting economically  to  the  law  of  the  jungle,  as  we 
and  all  nations  are  preparing  to  do,  we  and  they  are 
only  accepting  the  logical  consequences  of  our  medieval 
international  politics. 

The  immediate  calamity  of  all  this  may  not  instantly 
be  clear.     It  does  not  lie  wholly  in  this  too  weak 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  283 

instrument  which  will  probably  make  little  impression 
on  the  world;  it  comes  closer  home.  We  like  to  say 
that  the  hope  of  the  world  rests  with  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain.  And  beyond  question  that  state- 
ment is  true.  But  a  new  menace  arises.  Through 
the  demands  of  the  law  of  self-preservation,  a  law 
which  England  in  declaring  an  embargo  has  already 
invoked,  the  contest  between  the  pohtical  ideals  of 
Germany  and  the  rest  of  the  world  which  culminated 
on  November  1 1  last  is  likely  to  be  shifted  and  become 
an  industrial  and  economic  as  w^ell  as  a  political  con- 
test, with  no  one  knows  what  results,  between  the  two 
great  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  The  two 
great  aggressive,  creative,  constructive  and  dominant 
nations  of  the  world  are  hereafter  to  be  the  United 
States  and  the  British  Empire.  In  the  economic  strug- 
gle that  is  coming  they  will  be  face  to  face  everywhere. 
They  will  have  between  them  more  points  of  contact, 
more  causes  of  friction,  more  rivalries,  both  on  sea  and 
land,  in  manufacturing  and  in  finance,  than  all  the 
other  nations  of  the  world  combined. 

To  say  that  good  will,  a  common  speech,  a  common 
literature,  and  a  common  inheritance  of  law  and  tra- 
ditions, is  a  sufficient  safeguard  against  that  friction 
and  rivalry  is  sheer  folly.  The  League  proposed 
changes  nothing  fundamental  and  will  not  meet  these 
perils.  We  ought  to  know  that  without  discussion. 
This,  therefore,  is  the  immediate  calamity-:  the  two 
great  liberty-loving  nations  which  should  co-operate 
are  about  to  enter  on  a  program  of  strong,  perhaps 
bitter  competition.  If  we  are  not  to  ignore  all  that 
history  teaches  we  know  what  that  means  sooner  or 
later. 


284  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

At  no  distant  date  we  shall  have  passed  the  time 
(and  discussion  of  this  charter  will  help  the  time  to 
pass),  when  the  co-operation  that  leads  to  federation 
is  possible.  Through  the  rivalries  of  commerce  and 
the  demands  of  sovereignty,  it  is  fairly  certain  that  the 
relations  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
will  soon  be  such  that  the  great  opportunity  created 
by  the  war  will  have  been  utterly  frittered  away. 

People  are  apt  to  underestimate  the  power  of  a 
written  instrumentality  of  government.  Men  say  that 
after  all  the  efficiency  of  government  in  a  republic 
depends  almost  wholly  on  the  character  and  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  people.  They  point  to  some  of  the  South 
American  republics  as  evidence  that  the  written  instru- 
ment doesn't  mean  much  and  that  a  government  isn't 
necessarily  republican  because  it  claims  to  be.  Which 
proves  that  a  good  instrumentality  may  be  badly 
used — that  is  all. 

On  the  other  hand  men  say  that  in  such  countries  as 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  where  the  people 
are  generally  educated  and  understand  the  obUgations 
of  citizenship,  everything  would  be  all  right  an3n\'ay. 
And  to  confirm  that  they  tell  us  that  Great  Britain  is 
more  democratic  than  our  own  country,  although  it 
has  a  King  and  a  Court  and  an  hereditary  legislative 
body.  It  isn't  true  that  Great  Britain  is  more  demo- 
cratic than  we  are.  With  King  and  Court  and  primo- 
geniture and  a  House  of  Lords,  Great  Britain  is  a 
republic  only  in  part.  The  body  of  traditions  and 
precedents  which  make  up  what  is  known  as  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution  cannot  be  called  an  instrumentality 
of  government  similar  to  our  written  Constitution  or 
to  any  written  Constitution.     It  is  the  product  of 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  285 

hundreds  of  years  of  struggle.  It  was  not  struck  from 
the  brains  of  men  at  a  dozen  sittings  as  the  proposed 
Constitution  for  a  League  of  Nations  was,  and  as  any 
Constitution  for  anything  Uke  the  purpose  proposed 
must  be. 

The  form  of  the  Constitution  of  any  League  is  there- 
fore \'ital.  Our  own  history  proves  this  contention  to 
the  hilt.  The  Thirteen  States  claimed  severally  to  be 
sovereign.  They  had  no  body  of  precedents  under 
which  they  could  unite.  They  had  to  write  out  an 
instrument,  and  the  instrument  they  created  was  called 
"Articles  of  Confederation  and  Perpetual  Union". 

In  the  government  created  by  that  instrument  the 
units  were  states,  states  which  yielded  little  to  the 
central  government.  The  Continental  Congress  had 
no  power  to  raise  revenue  by  taxation  and  so  really 
had  no  power  at  all.  Government  under  this  instru- 
ment was  a  failure  and  after  1783  became  a  farce.  The 
United  States  as  a  power  became  a  jest  amongst  the 
nations. 

Then  the  Federal  Constitution  was  drafted.  After 
a  notable  struggle  it  was  adopted.  The  Articles  of 
Confederation  were  entirely  abandoned.  The  trans- 
formation which  followed  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
facts  in  the  history  of  governments.  The  people  were 
the  same,  the  states  were  the  same,  the  problem  was 
the  same.     But  how  amazingly  different  the  result. 

From  confusion  and  impotence  the  United  States 
passed  to  a  condition  of  order  and  power;  from  no 
public  credit  to  sound  public  credit;  from  the  con- 
tempt of  the  world  to  its  respect. 

The  written  instrument  of  government  was  all 
powerful  in  that  transformation.     It  was  a  great  in- 

20 


286  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

strument;  it  is  still,  notwithstanding  the  drift  of  recent 
years  away  from  the  representative  form  which  was 
the  secret  of  its  success. 

The  problem  now  facing  the  free,  self-governing 
states  of  the  world  is  not  new ;  it  has  been  solved.  We 
need  make  no  great  experiment  as  our  fathers  did. 

Apply  this  acid  test  to  the  instrument  proposed: 

Will  it,  if  adopted,  transform  the  relations  of  the 
free  states  of  the  world  as  our  Federal  Constitution 
transformed  the  relations  of  the  thirteen  states,  or 
anything  like  it?    I  think  not. 

We  went  into  the  war  to  slay  the  Blond  Beast.  We 
were  swept  in  by  our  self-respect.  We  were  hot  with 
righteous  wrath. 

Now  we  are  called  on  to  furnish  the  most  powerful 
navy  in  the  world  and  a  large  standing  army.  WTiy? 
Is  it  because  we  helped  to  slay  the  Beast?  That  should 
have  made  such  preparations  unnecessary.  Is  it 
because  we  are  still  stirred  by  wrath?  No;  the  crisis 
of  wrath  is  passing.    Why  then? 

Because  we  now  face  not  the  Beast  but  the  con- 
ditions that  gave  the  Beast  its  opportunity.  Because 
we  see  that  the  real  causes  of  war  exist  constantly 
even  between  nations  whose  people  would  hke  to  be 
friends.  Because  under  the  rules  of  sovereigntj^  we 
must  now  arm  against  our  friends.  A  great  navy  means 
what?  Little  except  fear  of  Great  Britain.  There  is 
no  one  else  to  fear.  A  great  navy  means  that  we  in- 
tend ultimately  to  dispute  the  control  of  the  seas  with 
Great  Britain.  Criminal  folly  as  that  is,  the  law  of 
sovereignty,  of  self-preservation  demands  it.  And  it 
will  continue  to  demand  it  with  all  the  horrible  pos- 
sibihties  involved  until  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  is  re- 


The  Proposed  League  of  Nations  287 

united — not  by  surrender  of  one  nation  to  another, 
but  by  the  creation  of  a  new  power  made  up  of  all  the 
English-speaking  world. 

The  League  of  Nations  proposed  would  probably 
lead  us  back  and  not  forward,  it  might  lead  toward 
confusion  rather  than  toward  order.  What  it  proposes 
is  a  Confederation  and  before  we  join  another  Confed- 
eration we  must  forget  or  repudiate  about  the  brightest 
page  in  our  history.  T\Tiat  it  proposes  to  create  is  a 
supergovernment  and  that  we  will  not  tolerate. 

A  post-bellum  Federation,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world 
at  least — and  we  could  not  ignore  France — would  take 
its  inspiration  from  Independence  Hall  and  not  from 
Potsdam;  it  would  react  to  the  philosophy  of  the  Feder- 
alist and  not  to  the  philosophy  of  Bernhardi;  it  would 
within  that  world  correct  the  fundamental  fault ;  it  would 
create  between  the  federated  states  a  court  in  which 
issues  that  otherwise  mean  war  could  be  adjudicated; 
it  would  instantly  erect  against  the  ancient  enemy  of 
France  a  fortress  which  that  enemy  would  not  dare 
to  attack;  it  would  lift  from  that  devoted  Republic 
the  awful  shadow  under  which  she  has  lived  for  fifty 
years ;  it  would  move  the  world  away  from  the  shambles 
of  sovereignty  and  hasten  the  coming  of  the  day  when 
"the  war  drums  throb  no  longer  and  the  battle  flags 
are  furled". 


PEACE  AT  LAST 


FROM   THE   AGENCY   BULLETIN   (N.  Y.  L.) 
JANUARY  4.  1919 


EACE  has  not  yet  been  achieved,  but  the 
:  fighting  as  it  was  carried  on  from  August 
y  4,  1914,  to  November  11,  1918,  is  over. 
7^^  Peace  is  coming.  Our  reaction  to  this  great 
►)  fact  gives  only  a  faint  impression  of  the 
rush  of  feehng  that  overwhelmed  the  people  of  the  Allies 
when  the  slaughter  ceased  and  the  day  of  Hope  began 
to  dawn. 

There  are  plenty  of  people  who  still  believe  that  we 
entered  this  war  from  selfish  motives,  because  and 
solely  because  we  believed  we  were  politically  imperiled. 
Whether  the  world  finally  concludes  that  our  motives 
were  chiefly  unselfish  will  be  determined  ultimately  by 
what  we  do  at  the  peace  table  and  afterwards. 

No  single  man  at  the  great  Peace  Congress,  now 
convening,  makes  an  appeal  to  the  plain  people  of  the 
world  at  all  approaching  that  made  by  President 
Wilson.  Some  of  us  are  disposed  to  criticise  what  is 
called  his  "secrecy",  his  disposition  to  ignore  the 
Congress,  his  apparent  hesitancy  in  advancing  a  post- 
bellum  plan.  But  we  should  remember  that  he  is 
closer  to  the  facts  than  we  are  and  knows  many  things 
of  which  we  are  ignorant. 

We  supported  the  President  through  two  years  of 
neutrality  and  through  nearly  two  years  of  war,  without 

288 


Peace  at  Last  289 

partisanship  and  with  growing  wonder  over  his  in- 
creasing grip  on  the  conscience  of  the  world. 

As  a  people  we  instinctively  dislike  all  the  methods  of 
war;  not  merely  the  sacrifice  of  life,  the  destruction  of 
plans,  the  necessary  taxes,  the  censorship,  the  politics 
that  crept  in;  but  we  especially  dislike  the  autocratic 
powers  which  our  representatives  in  Congress  voted  to 
the  Chief  Executive  and  his  associates. 

We  want  all  these  things  ended  as  soon  as  possible. 

While  the  fighting  is  ended  the  war  is  not  over. 
Victory  can  be  frittered  away  at  the  peace  table  and 
few  things  can  more  effectively  help  to  destroy  the 
fruits  of  victory  than  carping,  partisan,  destructive 
criticism.  The  President  is  our  Leader  as  well  as  our 
Commander,  and  we  must  play  the  game  out  under 
him.  Therefore  until  you  see  him  do  some  unpatriotic, 
un-American  thing,  BACK  HIM  UP  and  hold  back 
your  criticisms. 

He  is  carrying  about  the  greatest  burden  that  ever 
fell  upon  the  shoulders  of  mortal  man.  He  is  facing 
questions  so  complex  that  they  seem  to  most  of  us 
insoluble;  but  he  is  facing  them  bravely. 

The  plain  people  of  the  world,  by  a  psychology  that 
baffles  the  wise,  have  come  to  regard  the  President  as 
the  one  great  Leader  who  can  prevent  future  wars. 

He  has  not  concretely  advanced  his  PLAN  as  yet. 
No  other  leader  or  group  of  leaders  has  a  sufficient  plan. 
Let  us  hope  that  even  as  this  people  was  able  at  the 
critical  time  to  deliver  the  decisive  blow  on  the  battle 
line,  so  our  President  will  be  able,  when  the  old-style 
diplomacy  has  exhausted  itself,  when  the  secret  treaties 
of  Europe  have  been  uncovered  and  the  ambitions  of 
politicians  have  been  exposed,  to  brush  aside  ancient 


290  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

fears  and  prejudices  and  lead  this  weary  old  world  into 
a  higher  place. 

That  is  our  New  Year's  wish  to  him,  to  the  Mothers 
and  Fathers  of  all  the  dead  and  maimed,  and  to  the 
millions  who  pray  for  deliverance  from  the  savagery 
of  war. 


LET  THE   TRUMPET   SOUND 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

UNIVERSITY  OF  VERMONT 

JUNE  22,  1919 


N  Lear  Shakespeare  makes  one  of  his  charac- 
ters say: 

"If  you  have  victory,  let  the  trumpet  sound 
For  him  that  brought  it." 

To-day  first  of  all  we  sound  the  trumpet, 
we  strike  the  note  of  victory.  Not  in  vain — unless 
it  be  by  our  neglect  or  sin — did  any  son  of  this  Univer- 
sity die  in  the  great  war.  In  the  tragedy  of  their 
taking  off,  in  the  manner  of  it,  in  the  spirit  of  it,  we 
find  no  flaw.  Against  the  bitterness  of  it  we  have 
the  inspiring  consolation  of  a  clean  victory.  Under 
the  power  of  the  blows  these  boys  and  their  fellows 
struck  thrones  crumbled,  ancient  privileges  were  swept 
away.  The  Blond  Beast  was  slain.  We  rejoice  while 
we  weep:  We  are  proud  to  have  been  and  to  be  a 
part  of  an  institution  that  whelps  such  cubs. 

Into  a  crowded  hour  they  put  the  whole  of  life. 
They  greeted  death  no  more  certainly  than  we  ulti- 
mately shall.  But  they  greeted  him  in  the  assault, 
not  in  retreat.  They  saw  no  afternoon  of  days.  From 
the  fresh  morning  of  life  they  leaped  to  the  ''undis- 
covered country"  to  which  men  go  falteringly  not 
when  they  will  but  when  death  wills. 

291 


292  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

They  went 

"*  *  *  *  not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at  night, 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust  *  *  *  * 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 

For  him  that  brought  victory  therefore  sound  the 
trumpet:  first  for  the  dead,  then  for  the  hving, — for 
the  nine  hundred  odd  who  served  in  some  capacity, 
and  especially  for  the  fourteen  who  were  cited  for 
bravery.    Sound  the  Trumpet! 

One  of  the  gravest  questions  that  students  of  de- 
mocracy in  this  generation  have  from  time  to  time 
asked  has  now  been  answered.  The  question  was: 
How  will  our  youth  meet  the  supreme  test  of  war? 

We  had  not  trained  them  for  that  sort  of  fighting. 
On  the  contrary,  we  had  taught  our  boys  to  be  merciful, 
to  be  loyal  to  women,  gentle  with  children  and  to  hate 
war.  They  loved  liberty,  individual  liberty;  they 
thought ;  they  decided  for  themselves.  As  against  men 
produced  by  generations  of  rigid  discipline,  as  against 
the  monstrous  processes  of  modern  warfare,  how  would 
our  boys  stand  up? 

The  fighting  from  Seicheprey  to  the  Argonne  Forest 
answered  that  question. 

No  more  unflinching,  clear-headed,  unselfish  courage 
was  ever  seen  on  any  battle-field  in  all  the  tides  of 
time  than  was  shown  by  these  half-drilled  boys. 

This  venerable  institution  in  all  that  struggle  lost 
about  twenty  men — mostly  students.  They  were 
aviators,  officers,  doughboys,  engineers,  naval  men  and 
doctors.  They  died  variously;  some  instantly  in 
action;   some  suffered  and  died  in  camps;   the  fate  of 


Let  the  Trumpet  Sound  293 

one  boy  is  wrapped  in  impenetrable  mysterj-.  Their 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  the  American  Army,  is  perhaps 
perfectly  expressed  in  the  daring  conduct  and  heroic 
death  of  Lieutenant  Clarence  M.  Collard  of  the  Class 
of  1917.  When  the  order  came,  over  the  top  he  went 
with  his  men;  up  a  hill,  through  a  valley,  up  another 
hill,  until  a  machine  gun  bullet  pierced  his  brain. 
Smitten  to  death  he  raised  his  hand,  beckoned  his  men 
forward,  and  fell — forward.  That  was  the  spirit  of  the 
whole  Army.  Free  men — undisciplined  and  untrained 
by  the  standards  of  militarism — were  more  than  a 
match  for  the  disciplined  product  of  Germany. 

While  I  make  no  apologies  for  war,  I  am  not  sure 
that  the  soul-quickening  which  we  and  all  the  world 
got  when  death  took  Collard  and  Adams  and  Aldrich 
and  Brown  and  Buxton  and  Chamberlain  and  Foster 
and  Hunt  and  Palmer  and  Page,  was  not  worth  more 
than  all  they  could  have  achieved  had  the  visions  of 
their  splendid  youth  been  allowed  to  become  realities 
in  the  achievements  of  full  maturity.  And  who  shall 
measure  the  inspiration  that  comes  to  us  from  those 
others  who  faced  death  as  unflinchingly  and  were  not 
allowed  their  glorious  hour?  Baker  and  Billings  and 
Forbush  and  Freeman  and  Furber  and  Ingalls  and 
Murphy  and  Noble  and  Phelan  and  Parker.  To  them 
— all  average  American  men  and  boys- — Fate  issued 
the  supreme  challenge.  They  never  flinched.  They 
answered  unhesitatingly,  and  died  smiling. 

Consciously  or  unconsciously  they  all  died  for  a 
great  cause.  That  cause  is  greater  than  democracy, 
greater  than  country.  About  to  die  Edith  Cavell  saw 
a  vision  and  said:  'T  now  understand  that  patriotism 
is  not  enough." 


294  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Incompetent  leadership,  provincialism  and  selfish- 
ness promise  to  delay  the  triumph  of  the  cause  for 
which  they  died.  The  collapse  of  Germany  has  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  Allied  powers  an  opportunity  to 
achieve  in  a  generation  what  otherwise  msiy  be  realized 
onl}'  after  centuries  of  fighting.  At  present  the  indi- 
cations are  that  the  world  will  continue  to  travel  over 
the  broken,  cruel,  bloody  road  it  has  so  long  followed. 
There  is  to  be  no  quick  emergence  into  a  new  order 
under  which  law  shall  rule  between  nations,  under  which 
wars  shall  be  made  improbable  if  not  impossible. 

Nevertheless,  that  new  order  is  what  the  people  of 
the  world  now  demand;  achieved,  it  would  be  almost 
a  political  miracle  but  it  would  not  be  unprecedented. 

Our  fathers  did  exactly  that.  They  wrought  a  like 
transformation  in  1789,  and  the  rays  of  the  sun  of 
that  new  day  still  warm  us  and  make  our  path  clear. 
Then  an  old  order  was  abandoned  and  a  new  order 
adopted  almost  over-night.  Then  jealousies  were  sup- 
pressed: fear  was  quieted;  the  voice  of  prejudice  was 
stilled.  Then  the  cry  that  each  State  must  preserve 
and  defend  its  own  liberties  went  up  throughout  the 
Colonies,  as  it  does  to-day  amongst  the  Nations,  but 
it  was  overwhelmed  by  the  cry  that  the  States  must 
create  a  greater  State,  a  finer  liberty,  a  larger  hope, 
and  a  controlling  law. 

The  United  States,  the  British  Empire  and  France 
have  faced  a  like  situation  and  opportunity  since  the 
11th  day  of  November,  1918,  and  they  have  not  met 
the  issue.  They  have  essentially  adhered  to  the  old 
order.  Jealousies  and  prejudices  and  fears  have  been 
strong  and  bold.  The  cry  has  been  "Great  Britain 
First!"    "Canada    First!"    "France  First!"    "America 


Let  the  Trumpet  Sound  295 

First!"  They  have  shouted  with  all  the  fervor  of  the 
cave  man  ''No  entangling  alliances"  at  a  time  in  the 
world's  development  when  men  ^y  across  the  Atlantic 
in  about  one-third  the  time  that  George  Washington 
took  in  going  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York.  En- 
tangling alliances  indeed!  When  the  whole  world  is 
entangled  by  steam  and  electricity,  by  land  and  wire- 
less telegraphy,  by  land  and  wireless  telephony,  and  by 
men  who  fl}^  so  fast  that  they  outrun  hurricanes. 
These  entanglements  have  created  relations  between  na- 
tions which  the  nations  themselves  stupidly  declare  they 
will  never  tolerate.  Pohtical  leaders  shout  their  undying 
determination  to  prevent  the  creation  of  conditions 
which  already  exist.  "What  do  we  in  the  United  States 
care"  they  say  "about  the  struggles  in  Armenia? 
What  interest  have  we  in  the  ambitions  of  Poland? 
Why  should  we  seek  to  have  a  voice  in  the  settle- 
ment of  any  European  question  ?  Let  them  look 
out  for  themselves.  We  can  and  will  do  the  same  for 
ourselves." 

But  a  bitter  experience  has  taught  that  we  do  care 
about  the  Armenian  massacres;  that  we  are  interested 
in  Poland's  ambitions ;  that,  if  we  are  to  save  ourselves 
alive,  we  must  have  a  voice  in  the  settlement  of  many 
European  questions. 

On  June  28,  1914,  not  one  American  citizen  in  a 
thousand  knew  whether  Sarajevo  was  the  name  of  a 
town  or  a  religion;  but  a  pistol  shot  there  started  a 
conflict  which  cost  us  in  dead  and  wounded  nearly 
300,000  of  our  youth,  and  heaped  up  a  net  per  capita 
debt — assuming  that  all  loans  to  our  Allies  will  be 
repaid — one  and  three-quarters  times  our  per  capita 
debt  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.    We  did  not  want  to 


296  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

go  to  Europe,  but  we  had  to  go.  We  do  not  want  to  mix 
in  its  troubles  now,  but  we  must.  The  hope  that  w^e 
may  not  have  to  send  another  army  across  the  sea  is  a 
false  hope  unless  the  existing  order  is  changed.  Respon- 
sibility to  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  our  own 
self-respect  took  us  there  in  1917.  That  responsibility 
is  greater  now  than  it  has  ever  been  before.  It  will 
increase.  We  cannot  avoid  it  if  we  are  to  maintain  our 
traditions  and  our  place  in  the  world.  But  unhappily 
some  of  our  leaders  seem  disposed  to  run  away.  In- 
stead of  facing  the  problem,  they  start  the  old  familiar 
cries:  "No  entangling  alliances",  ''America  First". 
Of  course  "America  First",  but  how?  Certainly  not 
by  playing  the  ostrich,  by  assuming  that  existing  con- 
ditions do  not  exist.  Alexander  Hamilton  would  not 
have  thus  counseled  us,  nor  Benjamin  Franklin,  nor 
James  Madison,  nor  George  Washington  himself,  who 
first  cautioned  the  Nation  against  entangling  alliances. 
These  men  would  have  grasped  the  whole  issue,  as 
they  did  the  issues  between  the  Thirteen  States.  They 
would  have  recognized  the  fact  that  between  the 
United  States,  the  British  Empire,  and  France,  re- 
lations now  exist  so  close,  so  constant,  and  so  vital 
that  the  solution  of  the  problems  which  grow  out  of 
them  cannot  be  entrusted  to  the  chaos  of  so-called 
international  law.  If  they  are  so  entrusted,  then  there 
will  be  a  constant  and  a  deadl}'  peril  to  the  peace  of  the 
world.  These  problems  cannot  be  solved  by  any 
covenant  between  sovereign  states  as  such.  Similar 
problems  between  the  Thirteen  States  brought  them 
repeatedly  to  the  verge  of  civil  war.  The  Articles  of 
Confederation  and  Perpetual  Union  created  a  League 
of  Nations;  the  Confederation  of  1781  was  a  covenant 


Let  the  Trumpet  Sound  297 

between  sovereign  states.  Under  that  instrument  gov- 
ernment became  little  more  than  a  farce.  Washington 
and  Hamilton  and  Franklin  and  Madison  and  Marshall 
saw  the  futility  of  traveling  farther  on  that  road.  They 
saw  the  chaos  that  existed  and  foresaw  the  political 
impotence  that  must  follow  if  the  Thirteen  States  con- 
tinued on  the  theory  that  each  was  sovereign  in  the 
full  significance  of  that  word.  They  dared  to  face  the 
political  shouter  typified  by  Patrick  Henry  who  de- 
nounced the  proposed  Federal  Constitution  because  its 
opening  sentence  read  ''We  the  People"  and  not  "We 
the  States".  They  faced  the  demagogue  who  shouted 
the  word  "Super-sovereignty"  then  as  certain  men  and 
papers  do  now.  Our  Federal  Government  was  the 
"Super-sovereignty"  then  proposed  and  then  so  fiercely 
assailed.  It  is  so  easy  now  to  see  what  false  prophets 
they  were.  It  was  not  so  easy  then.  It  ought  to  have 
been  easy.  Why  was  it  difficult?  Partly  because  of  the 
demagogue — an  animal  not  peculiar  to  this  particular 
period — partly  because  certain  political  leaders  in  the 
states  knew  they  would  lose  prestige  and  power  if  the 
Federal  Constitution  was  adopted,  and  partly  because 
many  of  the  people  of  each  state  were  persuaded  that 
liberty  could  be  preserved  only  if  their  separate  sov- 
ereignty was  preserved.  They  were  afraid,  where  their 
lives  and  property  were  involved,  to  make  common 
cause  with  other  people  so  far  away.  At  that  time 
Georgia  was  farther  from  Maine  than  Thibet  now  is 
from  New  York. 

With  all  the  noble  story  of  this  country's  develop- 
ment under  the  Federal  Constitution  before  us  we 
find  our  statesmen  largely  Patrick  Henrys  and  George 
Clintons.     Nowhere  do  we  hear  the  voice  of  Alexander 


298  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Hamilton.  Ex-President  Taft  takes  the  broadest  view 
of  any,  but  even  he  would  be  unwilling  to  create  a  new 
charter  under  which  the  United  States  and  the  British 
Empire  and  France  should  so  unite,  that  wars  between 
them  would  become  as  impossible  as  wars  now  are 
between  the  states  of  this  Union. 

There  is  a  rude  awakening  coming  to  all  those  who 
think  we  should  retire  from  Europe  as  quickly  as 
possible  and  leave  the  European  nations  to  work  out 
their  own  salvation.  Our  people  generally  and  our  so- 
called  statesmen  especially  seem  to  have  no  conception 
of  the  economic  situation  abroad.  Only  here  and  there 
a  keen  observer  has  understood  that  Europe  rests  on 
the  lips  of  a  volcano  which  may  work  more  devastation 
than  the  war  itself.  Europe  in  other  words  can  easily 
(and  may)  revert  to  a  condition  of  social  and  economic 
chaos  that  will  ultimately  involve  all  the  world. 

This  country  and  this  country  alone  can  bring  Europe 
salvation.  That  we  must  do.  We  must  do  it  not  as  a 
work  of  altruism  but  to  save  ourselves. 

There  is  a  widespread  demand  in  England  that  we 
forgive  the  over  $4,300,000,000  loaned  her  during  the 
war.  The  London  Times  vigorously  denies  that  any 
such  desire  exists,  but  the  evidence  is  conclusive. 
France  thinks  we  ought  to  do  the  same  thing  in  her  case. 
Italy  is  of  the  same  mind.  We  may  not  wonder  so 
much  at  France  whose  wounds  are  so  desperate,  or  at 
Italy  with  her  unfortunate  industrial  condition,  but 
that  proud  Albion  should  even  discuss  such  a  situa- 
tion is  a  disturbing  even  an  alarming  circumstance. 
To  save  ourselves  we  must  help  the  world  industrially. 
We  can  no  more  escape  that  than  we  could  Escape 
war  when  Germany  ordered  us  off  the  seven  seas. 


Let  the  Trumpet  Sound  299 

We  must  help  Europe  to  help  herself;  we  must 
help  her  people  to  go  to  work.  Her  people  are  not 
working  now  and  the  alarming  fact  is  that  their  ci^•il 
morale  is  so  shattered  that  they  apparently  do  not 
want  to  work.  A  million  people  in  Great  Britain 
mostly  able  to  work  are  not  only  idle  but  are  receiving 
a  weekly  dole  from  the  Treasurj^  In  Belgium  eight 
hundred  thousand  are  in  the  same  condition.  In  a 
population  of  less  than  8,000,000  this  represents  about 
the  whole  industrial  section.  No  amount  of  money 
advanced,  no  amount  of  debts  forgiven  can  save 
Europe.  She  must  go  to  work,  and  we  must  help  her 
to  go  to  work. 

It  is  sheer  follj"  to  think  that  we  can  stand  aloof  in 
our  splendid  isolation  and  let  Europe  revert  to  chaos. 

On  what  tenable  ground  can  we  abandon  Europe 
now  with  our  work  half  done.  From  the  beginning 
the  problem  involved  more  than  crushing  the  Hun. 

Up  to  the  present  hour  our  work  outranks  that  of 
the  good  Samaritan.  We  helped  to  drive  the  thieves 
off.  The  problem  now  is:  Shall  we  leave  the  victim 
to  bleed  to  death?  The  Priest  and  the  Levite  seeing 
the  victim  of  the  thieves  passed  by  on  the  other  side, 
but  the  good  Samaritan  went  to  him,  bound  up  his 
wounds  pouring  in  wine  and  oil,  set  him  upon  his  own 
beast,  took  him  to  an  inn  and  promised  to  pay  the 
innkeeper's  bills.  A  certain  lawyer  you  will  recall  had 
sneeringly  asked  Jesus  "Who  is  my  neighbor?"  Jesus 
recited  this  parable  by  way  of  answer,  and  then  in 
turn  asked  the  lawyer  "Which  of  the  three,  the  Priest, 
the  Levite  or  the  good  Samaritan  was  neighbor  to  him 
that  fell  amongst  thieves?"  Even  the  lawyer  needed  no 
prompting.  He  said:  "He  that  showed  mercy  on  him". 


300  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

Whether  or  not  the  RepubUcan  reactionaries  in  the 
United  States  Senate  delay  peace  because  they  object 
to  the  so-called  League  of  Nations  Covenant,  con- 
tained in  the  treaty,  we  must  at  once  enter  an  economic 
and  industrial  league  of  nations  or  Europe  perishes. 
That  League  will  be  made  by  commercial  necessity,  a 
power  which  does  not  act  by  or  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  United  States  Senate:  a  body,  by  the 
way,  composed  largely  of  lawyers  amongst  whom  the 
parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  originally  delivered 
to  a  lawyer,  seems  to  be  unknown. 

John  Fiske  points  out  that  the  impulse  which  led 
to  the  Annapolis  Convention  and  to  the  immortal 
Congress  in  Independence  Hall  which  wrote  our  great 
Charter,  was  primarily  commercial.  Here  too  the 
movement  which  may  ultimately  lead  to  a  union  of 
democratic  peoples  promises  to  take  effective  origin  in 
commerce.  But  a  political  as  well  as  a  commercial 
union  of  peoples  must  come  if  the  relations  of  nations 
are  to  be  stabilized  and  civilized. 

That  Union  of  Peoples,  symbolized  by  our  Federal 
Constitution,  is  coming.  Yes;  it  is  coming  or  more 
and  worse  wars  are  coming  and  chaos  is  coming.  I  be- 
lieve that  sort  of  union  is  as  certain  to  come  ultimately 
as  the  laws  of  gravitation  are  certain  to  be  constant  in 
their  operation.  It  will  not  include  all  the  world  for 
many  centuries;  only  a  part  of  the  world  is  ready  for  it. 
But  while  its  organization  could  not  soon  include  all 
peoples,  it  could  soundly  include  so  large  a  portion  of 
humanity  that  its  physical  and  moral  power  would 
mightily  mould  all  nations. 

As  we  hesitated  and  dilly-dallied  and  tried  not  to  see 
our  duty  prior  to  April  6,  1917,  so  some  of  our  leaders 


Let  the  Trumpet  Sound  301 

now  hesitate  and  shilly-shally  over  the  League  of  Na- 
tions proposed — and  a  poor  thing  it  is  at  best — and  so 
they  will  hesitate  and  shilly-shally  over  our  part  in 
the  economic  and  reconstruction  problems  which  face 
Europe.  Those  problems  involve  us  just  as  certainh^  as 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  meant  that  we  must  fight. 

Food  production  in  Europe  and  in  Russia  has 
largely  ceased.  Europe  is  hungry.  It  will  probably 
become  hungrier.  Before  they  starve  men  become 
savages.  The  danger  now  is  that  the  very  foundations 
of  European  society  may  crumble;  that  even  Great 
Britain  may  not  escape.  He  is  a  fool  who  thinks  all 
that  can  happen  and  leave  us  safe — safe  and  smug  in 
what  he  is  pleased  to  call  our  splendid  isolation. 
As  France  has  been  the  pohtical  frontier  of  civihzation 
for  a  hundred  years  and  its  fighting  front  for  five  years, 
even  so  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  now 
become  the  industrial  and  social  frontiers  of  civilization. 
Our  splendid  isolation  will  protect  us  if  we  fail  to  act 
just  about  as  much  as  German  Faith  protected  Bel- 
gium. The  assault  will  come  however,  from  real 
necessity,  and  not  from  a  lying  pretense.  If  we  do  not 
direct  those  conditions,  those  conditions  will  direct  us. 
There  is  no  escape, — just  as  there  is  no  escape  from 
other  wars  so  long  as  the  relations  of  nations  are 
controlled  by  the  rules  of  pure  savagery  as  they  are 
to-day. 

This  therefore  is  the  cause,  greater  than  democracy, 
greater  than  country,  for  which  these  sons  of  the 
University  died: 

They  died  that  Edith  Cavell's  vision  might  become 
reality;  that  men  should  come  to  understand  why 
Patriotism  is  not  enough. 


302  Let  Us  Have  Peace 

They  died  that  human  servitude  which  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  and  Hapsburgs  under  the  guise  of  efficiency- 
sought  to  fasten  on  the  world  might  be  forever  ended. 

They  died  that  the  brutal  law  of  sovereignty,  which 
now  divides  men  into  hostile  camps  and  directly  or 
indirectly  breeds  war,  might  be  softened. 

They  died  that  international  savagery  might  also  die. 

They  died  that  international  justice  might  be 
born. 

They  died  to  create  the  unprecedented  opportunity 
which  faces  us  to-day. 

Therefore  we  pay  our  poor  tribute  to  these  heroes: 
sons  of  Vermont,  most  of  them;  beloved  children  of  the 
Universit}^  all  of  them.  We  enthrone  them  in  our 
history  and  traditions  in  these  words  of  the  Immortal 
Bard:' 

"When  wasteful  war  shall  statues  overturn, 
And  broils  root  out  the  work  of  masonrj', 
Nor  Marsis'  sword  nor  war's  quick  fire  shall  burn 
The  living  record  of  your  memorj\ 
'Gainst  death  and  all-oblivious  enmity 
Shall  you  pace  forth ;  your  praise  shall  still  find  room 
Even  in  the  ej-es  of  all  posterity." 


OTHER  ADDRESSES 


SHAKESPEARIANA 


A  PAPER  READ  AT  THE 
THIRD  DINNER  OF  THE  HOBBY  CLUB.  N.  Y.,  APRIL  18,  1912 


;0  the  student  of  history  the  Roman  Forum 
and  the  Colosseum  are  centres  of  over- 
powering interest.  The  appeal  of  the 
Forum,  when  under  direct  observation,  be- 
comes almost  painful  in  its  intensity.  The 
Colosseum  holds  one  with  a  grip  which  cannot  be 
shaken  off.  This  appeal  springs  not  from  what  these 
pathetic  ruins  are,  but  from  what  they  suggest.  Like 
a  setting  sun  they  flash  through  the  gathering  night  of 
time,  reveaUng  earlier  heights  of  human  achievement 
and  vanishing  evidences  of  human  power.  The  three 
remaining  pillars  of  the  Temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux 
are  like  a  long  streamer  of  light  from  the  Western  sky. 
Defying  the  ages,  in  the  midst  of  a  pitiful  ruin  they 
inflame  the  imagination.  They  awaken  longings  for  a 
fuller  knowledge  of  an  age  whose  greatness  they  reflect, 
a  fuller  knowledge  of  a  people  who  created  such  sur- 
passing beauty  and  left  evidences  of  such  colossal 
power.  Of  what  the  Forum  was  in  the  time  of  Julius 
Caesar,  we  know  something,  but  of  what  it  meant  we 
know  httle.  The  antiquarian  and  the  archaeologist 
theorize,  generalize,  and  frequently  dogmatize  before 
they  reconstruct.  They  read  forward  from  scattered 
fragments,  from  broken  columns  and  foundation  stones 

305 


306  Other  Addresses 

to  the  pages  of  written  history;  but  even  if  they  could 
v/ith  assurance  place  before  us  the  Roman  Forum  as  it 
was  and  the  Colosseum  as  it  was,  they  could  not  re- 
create the  life  that  surged  over  the  pavements  of  the 
Forum,  and  crowded  the  seats  of  the  Colosseum  with  a 
hundred  thousand  spectators  when  some  great  combat 
was  on  "between  savage  beasts  or  still  more  savage 
men".  Something  vital  would  be  lacking  if  every  arch 
were  rebuilt,  every  temple  and  palace  restored,  every 
statue  replaced,  every  marble  and  brick  by  some  magic 
renewed.  There  was  a  period — indeed  there  were  long 
periods — when  all  was  in  order.  There  was  a  meridian 
of  glory  to  which  the  present  ruins  point,  and,  putting 
aside  the  quest  for  evidences  of  what  part  humanity 
itself  played  from  day  to  day  while  these  splendors 
were  at  their  full,  we  long  for  an  adequate  picture  of 
these  structures  as  they  stood  before  the  Goths  dese- 
crated and  despoiled  them,  before  the  Christians  shat- 
tered their  glorious  statuary  and  stole  their  gold, 
their  ivories  and  their  marbles. 

The  so-called  works  of  Shakespeare  are  a  ruin  more 
complete,  more  pathetic,  more  powerful  in  their  appeal 
than  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Forum,  more  beyond  the 
power  of  restoration  than  the  Colosseum.  The  Folio  of 
1623,  which  is  measurably  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
all  Shakespeariana,  does  not  contain  the  works  of 
Shakespeare.  The  works  of  Shakespeare,  properly 
speaking,  do  not  exist,  and,  complete,  never  existed. 
The  First  Folio  is  merely  a  congeries  of  masterpieces, 
which  were  created  during  a  period  of  some  twenty  odd 
years,  and,  each  in  turn,  marred  as  it  was  completed. 

What  Shakespeare  built  out  of  the  limitless  wealth 
of  his  genius  no  one  fully  knows.     With  the  exception 


Shakespeariana  307 

of  his  two  long  poems  and  the  sonnets,  no  part  even  of 
his  creations  at  any  time  stood  rounded  and  complete 
as  the  Forum  did,  as  the  Colosseum  did.  He  built  a 
literary  pile  as  noble  as  the  Colosseum,  as  wonderful  in 
its  beauty  as  the  Forum,  but  no  eye  save  his  ever  saw 
it,  and  he  never  saw  it  as  a  completed  whole.  If  he 
had,  he  would  not  have  seen  it  understandingly,  be- 
cause he  had  no  conception  himself  of  what  he  had 
done. 

The  Folio  of  1623  is  the  Colosseum,  the  Forum,  of 
Shakespeare's  empire.  It  is  at  best  a  restoration,  but 
a  restoration  which  aimed  at  no  ideal,  which  followed 
no  model.  Its  editors  could  follow  no  model,  because 
they  had  none.  They  might  have  been  diligent,  care- 
ful and  truthful,  but  they  failed  in  all  three  respects. 
Like  the  broken  columns  and  the  fallen  arches  of  Rome, 
these  shattered  masterpieces  inflame  the  imagination. 
They  tell  of  exquisite  beauty  and  marvelous  harmony, 
of  overwhelming  power ;  but  in  their  completeness  these 
qualities  are  marred  and  while  not  as  utterly  ruined  as 
are  The  Temple  of  Janus  and  the  Golden  House  of 
Nero,  they  are  more  beyond  the  reach  of  reproduction. 

Shakespeare  was  an  actor.  Acting  was  his  business. 
He  wrote  not  for  the  sake  of  writing,  not  because  he 
supposed  himself  a  great  literary  genius,  or  because  he 
thought  he  could  write  better  than  other  men;  but  in 
order  that  the  company  to  which  he  belonged  might 
have  the  wherewith  to  command  patronage,  and  in 
that  way  make  profitable  the  theatres  in  which  he  was 
part  owner.  We  know  that  he  accumulated  a  com- 
petence out  of  his  earnings  as  an  actor  and  out  of  his 
interest  in  certain  theatres,  but  we  do  not  certainly 
know  that  he  ever  received  a  farthing  for  his  immortal 


308  Other  Addresses 

Tragedies,  or  a  shilling  for  his  matchless  Comedies  and 
Histories. 

Up  to  about  the  time  when  Shakespeare  ceased  writ- 
ing, few  people  read  plays.  Plays  were  written  to  be 
acted,  not  to  be  read.  There  was  no  public  demand 
for  them  in  that  form.  When  Shakespeare  wrote,  he 
wrote  for  actors  not  for  readers;  he  wrote  for  a  prac- 
tical purpose,  not  for  immortality.  Moreover  when 
he  wrote,  his  was  not  the  last  word.  His  product  be- 
longed to  the  theatre.  It  was  taken  by  the  manager 
and  by  the  actors  and  rebuilt  to  meet  the  demands  of 
the  public  and  the  hmitations  of  the  people  who  were 
to  speak  the  lines:  As  Carlyle  says:  "Alas!  Shakes- 
peare had  to  write  for  the  Globe  Playhouse;  his  great 
soul  had  to  crush  itself,  as  it  could,  into  that  and  no 
other  mould."  What  Shakespeare  wrote,  therefore, 
passed  quickly  out  of  the  form  he  gave  it  into  the 
prompt  books  of  the  theatres.  How  much  what  he 
wrote  was  changed,  how  much  it  was  marred,  is,  of 
course,  beyond  the  reach  of  knowledge.  That  it  was 
materially  altered  is  certain.  These  prompt  books 
were  themselves  in  manuscript,  and  as  such  had,  in 
1623,  never  been  printed.  They  were  sometimes 
"pirated",  and  the  Shakespearian  plays  which  had 
appeared  in  quarto  form  prior  to  1623  were  prac- 
tically all  set  up  from  copy  which  was  obtained  sur- 
reptitiously. The  variation  in  the  texts  of  the  early 
quartos  of  Hamlet,  and  their  variation  again  from  the 
text  of  Hamlet  in  the  First  FoUo,  show  that  the  text  of 
the  quartos  was  derived  from  different  sources.  How 
much  of  Hamlet  in  the  quartos  is  Shakespeare,  and  how 
much  is  the  product  of  someone  else,  can,  of  course, 
never  be  ascertained.     As  there  is  abundant  internal 


Shakespeariana  309 

evidence  to  show  that  much  of  the  First  FoUo  was 
based  on  the  quartos  then  in  existence,  and  as  all  of 
these  had  been  pirated  from  the  prompt  books  of  the 
theatres  or  otherwise,  there  is  no  assurance  that  the 
Hamlet  printed  in  the  FoHo  itself  is  as  Shakespeare 
wrote  it,  indeed  every  presumption  is  to  the  contrary. 

Soon  after  Shakespeare  died,  a  demand  sprang  up 
for  plays  to  be  read  as  well  as  acted,  in  other  words, 
for  plays  in  printed  form.  It  was  to  meet  this  demand 
that  Heminge  and  Condell,  with  their  associates,  de- 
cided to  assemble  under  one  cover  the  plays  which 
bore  Shakespeare's  name.  The  enterprise  was  en- 
tirely commercial  in  its  character.  That  their  work 
would  become  the  most  stupendous  fact  in  the  history 
of  English  literature  never  entered  their  minds;  that 
these  mangled  children  of  Shakespeare's  brain  would 
become — in  spite  of  mutilation  and  in  spite  of  their 
own  stupid  and  slatternly  work  as  editors — the  wonder 
of  all  time,  was  as  completely  beyond  their  ken  as  it 
was  probably  beyond  the  dreams  of  Shakespeare  him- 
self. 

Where  did  they  get  the  "copy"  from  which  the  Folio 
was  set  up?  There  is  abundant  evidence  to  show  that 
when  they  undertook  the  work  they  did  not  know 
whence  the  copy  was  to  come.  There  was  no  clear 
line  of  demarcation  between  what  was  wholly  Shakes- 
peare's and  what  was  not.  Several  quartos  existed 
with  his  name  on  the  title  page  in  which  there  was  no 
line  that  Shakespeare  penned.  Some  works  which  were 
clearly  his  were  thirty  years  old,  and  some  had  passed 
out  of  the  files  of  the  theatres  into  private  hands.  The 
claim  which  the  editors  set  up  in  their  address  "To  the 
Great  Variety  of  Readers",  that  they  had  received  the 


310  Other  Addresses 

plays  from  Shakespeare  himself  with  scarcely  a  blot  in 
the  manuscript  is,  therefore,  clearly  a  fabrication. 
Thej^  made  that  plea  not  because  they  were  anxious 
over  the  textual  accuracy  of  the  Folio,  but  because 
they  thought  it  would  help  to  sell  the  book.  Shakes- 
peare's reputation  was  well  established.  There  was  a 
demand  for  what  he  had  created.  It  was  necessarj'  to 
reassure  probable  purchasers  that  the  Foho  contained 
what  Shakespeare  had  actually  written.  The  editors' 
real  anxiety,  however,  was  set  forth  in  the  exhortation 
''But,  Whatever  you  Do,  Buy."  The  foho  of  1623 
was  published  to  sell,  not  to  serve  literature,  not  to 
perpetuate  Shakespeare's  fame.  The  book  is  so 
crammed  with  evidences  of  haste  and  incompetence, 
and  worse,  that  it  is  impossible  to  credit  its  editors 
with  any  literary  ideals  or  with  any  serious  literary 
purpose.  Within  our  meaning  of  the  word,  the  book 
had  no  editor;  it  apparently  had  no  proof-reader. 
Volumes  have  been  written  on  these  facts,  and  other 
volumes  will  be  written  hereafter.  Both  Heminge  and 
Condell  spelled  their  own  names  differently  within  the 
first  half  dozen  pages  of  the  volume. 

I  shall  venture  to  point  out  only  one  of  the  many 
internal  evidences  of  their  haste  and  carelessness,  and 
of  the  fact  that  the  editors  got  copy  wherever  they 
could,  and  probably  none  of  it  was  in  Shakespeare's 
handwriting.  In  this  I  shall  follow  the  analysis  made 
by  jMr.  Sidney  Lee.  The  Folio  is  divided  into  three 
parts:  the  Comedies,  the  Histories,  and  the  Trage- 
dies. A  catalogue  precedes  the  text.  In  the  cata- 
logue of  the  Tragedies,  the  first  play  named  is  Corio- 
lanus,  which  is  stated  to  cover  folios  one  to  thirty 
inclusive.     When  we  turn  to  the  text  of  the  Tragedies, 


Shakespeariana  311 

we  find  that  the  first  one  printed  is  not  Coriolanus,  as 
the  catalogue  states,  but  Troihis  and  Cressida.  Turn- 
ing back  again  to  the  catalogue  of  the  Tragedies,  we 
find  that  Troilus  and  Cressida  is  omitted  altogether. 
How  could  this  happen?  Inspection  of  the  text  of 
this  play  shows  that  the  first  page  is  unnumbered, 
while  the  second  page  is  numbered  79,  the  third  80, 
and  the  succeeding  pages  of  the  entire  text  are  without 
any  pagination  whatever.  Coriolanus,  which  follows 
Troilus,  begins  as  the  catalogue  indicates  with  folio  one 
and  carries  pagination  in  regular  order.  Titus  Andro- 
nicus  succeeds,  then  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  then  Timon 
of  Athens,  which  carries  the  text  to  page  98.  Follow- 
ing this  is  a  list  of  the  actors  who  appeared  in  Timon. 
This  list  scantily  occupies  an  entire  page,  which  is 
unnumbered,  and  is  followed  by  a  blank  page.  Then 
follows  Julius  Caesar,  but  the  first  page  is  numbered 
109,  leaving  a  hiatus  of  nine  pages.  What  happened 
was  this :  The  original  plan  was  to  have  the  Tragedies 
in  this  order:  1st — Coriolanus;  2d — Titus  Andronicus; 
3d — Romeo  and  Juliet;  4th — Troilus;  but  for  some 
reason  after  the  first  three  tragedies  had  been  set  up 
and  three  pages  of  Troilus  were  in  type,  the  work  on 
Troilus  was  stopped.  It  stopped  at  page  80  of  the 
Tragedies.  There  is  a  strong  probability  that  the 
source  from  which  the  text  of  Troilus  was  to  be  derived 
failed  the  editors.  Mr.  Lee  thinks  these  three  pages 
were  set  aside,  but  the  curious  blunder  which  followed 
rather  indicates  that  they  were  left  standing  following 
the  last  page  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  A  guess  was  then 
made  as  to  which  quire  would  be  reached  by  the  last 
page  of  Troilus  when  it  was  all  in  type,  and  Julius 
Caesar,  which  was  to  follow,  was  begun  at  page  109. 


312  Other  Addresses 

When  they  had  printed  and  began  to  assemble  the 
printed  sheets  of  the  text,  they  discovered  the  hiatus 
between  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Julius  Caesar.  Then 
the  trouble  over  the  copy  of  Troilus  not  having  been 
cleared  up,  Timon  of  Athens — a  short  play — was  set 
up  and  put  in  the  blank  space;  but  it  was  too  short, 
and  so  it  was  patched  out  with  a  list  of  actors  and  a 
blank  page.  But  it  still  fell  short  by  nine  pages. 
Then  the  difficulty  over  the  text  of  Troilus  apparently 
having  been  cleared  up,  it  was  all  put  in  type.  \^Tiere 
to  put  it  was  the  next  problem.  There  was  no  place 
in  the  regular  pagination  of  the  Tragedies  to  insert  it. 
Apparently  the  others  had  all  been  printed.  Troilus 
is  one  of  the  three  plays  which  are  certainly  Shakes- 
peare's which  reflect  least  credit  on  him.  If  we  com- 
pare it  with  a  plaj'"  like  Macbeth  or  Jidius  Caesar  and 
take  into  account  what  always  happened  when  Shakes- 
peare turned  his  handiwork  over  to  the  manager,  we 
might  easily  conclude  that  there  is  very  little  of  Shakes- 
peare in  it.  How  little  the  editors  of  the  Folio  appre- 
ciated this  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  they  finally  de- 
cided to  print  it  at  the  head  of  all  the  Tragedies.  Then 
occurred  the  curious  confusion  and  the  blunder  to 
which  I  have  referred.  When  the  first  three  pages  of 
Troilus  were  set  up  following  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the 
quire  so  fell  that  the  last  page  of  Romeo  and  Juliet 
would  occupy  the  back  of  the  first  leaf  of  Troilus.  It 
is  certain  that  some  of  the  edition  was  printed  in  that 
order,  which  indicates  that  Mr.  Lee  is  wrong  in  as- 
suming that  the  first  three  pages  of  Troilus,  after  they 
were  set  in  type,  were  lifted  out  and  set  aside.  \\'Tien 
the  printed  leaves  were  assembled  under  the  plan 
which  put  Troilus  first  of  the  Tragedies  the  first  page 


Shakespeariana  313 

of  the  first  leaf  of  Troilus  was  the  last  page  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet.  The  difficulty  was  apparently  not  imme- 
diately discovered.  It  is  probable  that  the  absence 
from  its  proper  place  of  the  last  page  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  was  discovered  when  the  printed  sheets  were 
assembled,  and  this  page  must  have  been  re-set  when 
Timon  was  put  in  type;  but  the  incongruity  of  having 
the  last  page  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  the  first  page  that 
the  reader  would  find  in  turning  to  the  Tragedies,  was 
not  discovered  until  a  few  copies  at  least  of  the  Folio 
had  been  completed  and  sold.  Then  the  first  leaf  at 
east  of  Troilus  must  have  been  re-set  and  re-printed. 
To  fill  the  place  occupied  by  the  last  page  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet  a  prologue  which  was  probably  composed 
for  the  occasion  was  printed  as  the  first  page  of  the 
first  leaf  of  Troilus.  But  the  original  pagination, 
which  placed  the  numbers  79  on  the  second  page  and 
80  on  the  third  page  of  Troilus  was  never  corrected, 
and  stands  in  all  copies  to  this  day.  A  copy  of  the 
Folio  in  which  the  last  page  of  Romeo  appears  on  the 
front  of  the  first  leaf  of  Troilus — where  the  prologue 
appears  in  nearly  all  copies — is  owned  by  Mr.  J.  Pier- 
pont  Morgan. 

There  are  abundant  evidences  that  the  editors  were 
in  trouble  not  only  over  the  circumstance  which  I 
have  described,  as  soon  as  the  first  copies  were  put 
out,  but  over  many  other  blunders  of  an  almost  equally 
serious  nature.  Loud  complaints  were  undoubtedly 
made  over  errors  which  the  most  casual  reader  could 
easily  discover.  There  must  have  been  some  interesting 
scenes  in  the  printing  office  of  Blount  and  Jaggard 
before  the  last  copy  was  delivered.  Many  sections  of 
the  book  must  have  been  re-set  and  re-printed.    This 


314  Other  Addresses 

is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  texts  of  the  extant 
Folios  vary  in  many  particulars.  For  example,  there 
are  important  variations  between  the  First  Folio  which 
lies  before  you  and  the  text  of  the  Folio  which  was 
used  bj'  Air.  Sidney  Lee  in  his  fac  simile  edition  issued 
to  accompany  his  census  of  the  existing  copies  of  the 
First  Folio. 

I  have  sometimes  wondered  if  it  would  not  be  worth 
while — to  someone  who  could  afford  it — to  dissect  a 
Folio,  taking  it  apart  section  by  section  and  leaf  by 
leaf,  in  order  to  learn  just  how  the  quires  were  broken 
into  by  changes  subsequent  to  the  first  typographical 
plan  and  by  changes  made  after  the  printing  had  first 
been  completed. 

The  "copy"  which  the  editors  used  was  taken  from 
the  quartos,  the  existing  prompt  books  of  the  theatres 
and  from  private  hands.  Shakespeare's  ]\ISS.,  like  the 
MSS.  of  all  writers  of  plays  in  his  age,  had  long  since 
entirely  disappeared.  No  one  considered  them  impor- 
tant. The  available  copy  had  been  marred  by  the 
managers  of  the  theatres  and  maimed  by  the  actors. 
The  editors  then  proceeded  to  mutilate  it  further,  but 
they  could  not  destroy  the  vital  thing.  What  would 
be  lacking  if  the  Forum  and  the  Colosseum  were  re- 
stored lives  in  the  text  of  the  FoHo  of  1623.  Hamlet 
and  Lear,  Falstajf  and  Malvolio,  Desdemona  and  Rosa- 
lind, rise  superior  to  mutilated  texts  and  blundering 
editors.  They  have  not  lost,  they  will  never  lose  the 
vitality  which  Shakespeare  gave  them  when  they 
sprang  into  being  at  his  command.  If  they  should 
ultimately  fall  into  disfavor  on  the  stage — as  some  of 
Shakespeare's  creations  had  as'  early  as  1623 — they 
will  nevertheless  live,  because  his  vogue  upon  the  stage 


Shakespeariana  315 

has  come  to  be  the  smallest  part  of  his  immortality. 
The  truest  picture  of  ancient  Rome  to  be  had  to-day 
is  not  born  of  a  study  of  the  ruins  that  lie  between  the 
Palatine  and  the  Quirinal  Hills;  it  springs  into  being 
when  the  Cassius,  the  Antony,  the  Brutus  and  the 
Caesar  of  Shakespeare  speak  to  us.  The  material  form 
of  the  Forum  might  be  restored;  its  life  could  not  be. 
The  exact  form  of  the  Shakespeare  text  can  never  be 
restored,  but  the  life  that  spoke  through  its  lines  lives 
and  is  still  eloquent. 

Grant  White  says  of  the  errors  in  the  First  Folio: 
"Besides  minor  errors,  the  correction  of  which  is  ob- 
vious, words  are  in  some  cases  so  transformed  as  to  be 
past  recognition,  even  with  the  aid  of  the  context ;  lines 
are  transposed;  sentences  are  sometimes  broken  by  a 
full  point  followed  by  a  capital  letter,  and  at  other 
times  have  their  members  displaced  and  mingled  in 
incomprehensible  confusion;  verse  is  printed  as  prose, 
and  prose  as  verse ;  speeches  belonging  to  one  character 
are  given  to  another;  and,  in  brief,  all  possible  varieties 
of  typographical  derangement  may  be  found  in  this 
volume,  in  the  careful  printing  of  which  the  after  world 
had  so  deep  an  interest." 

The  First  Folio  contains — in  addition  to  the  plays — 
the  advertisement  of  the  publishers,  already  referred 
to;  a  print  of  Shakespeare  engraved  by  Martin  Droe- 
shout;  dedicatory  verses  by  Ben  Jonson,  Leonard  Diggs, 
Hugh  Holland,  and  an  unknown  author  who  signs  him- 
self 'T.  M.";  also  a  list  of  twenty-six  persons,  with 
Shakespeare  at  the  head,  who  are  described  as  "the 
principal  actors  in  all  these  plays."  The  poetical  trib- 
utes, except  Ben  Jonson's,  are  each  followed  by  a  blank 


316  Other  Addresses 

page ;  indicating  that  they  were  after-thoughts  prepared 
after  the  book  had  been  assembled. 

The  Second  FoHo  was  printed  in  1632,  and  is  almost 
an  exact  reproduction  of  the  First,  but  few  errors  being 
corrected  and  others  introduced.  It  contains  three 
additional  poetical  tributes  to  Shakespeare,  one  by 
Milton  and  two  by  unknown  writers.  These  tributes 
show  the  increased  supremacy  which  Shakespeare's 
plays  had  attained  since  the  First  Folio  was  issued. 

In  1664,  after  the  Puritan  fury  against  plays  and 
play-goers  had  spent  itself,  a  Third  Folio  edition  was 
issued,  containing,  in  addition  to  the  contents  of  the 
other  two,  Pericles  and  six  spurious  plays  which  had 
been  published  under  Shakespeare's  name  or  initials 
during  his  lifetime.  A  reprint  of  this  appeared  as  the 
Fourth  Folio  in  1685. 

Of  the  First  Folio  there  is  a  record  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty-eight*  copies — one  of  which  was  lost  on  the 
steamship  "Arctic",  in  1854,  and  one  was  burned  in  the 
Chicago  fire,  in  1872.  Their  unique  relation  to  the 
Elizabethan  age  and  to  all  English  literature,  as  well 
as  the  small  number  of  copies  in  existence,  make  them 
the  especial  quest  of  all  collectors.  As  Bernard  Qua- 
ritch  said  to  me  seventeen  years  ago:  "A  library  which 
contains  the  four  Shakespeare  Folios  at  once  takes 
imperial  rank."  Existing  copies  are  classed  as  I,  Per- 
fect, of  which  there  are  fifty-four,  twenty-nine  of  them 
being  owned  in  the  United  States;  II,  Imperfect,  but 
in  fairly  good  condition,  sixty-eight;  III,  Defective, 
sections  and  leaves  missing,  or  supplied  from  later 
folios — eighteen;  IV,  worse  than  defective — eighteen. 
The  two  lost  copies  were  of  the  latter  class. 

*Mr.  Sidney  Lee's  census. 


Shakespeariana  317 

The  first  attempt  at  editing  Shakespeare's  plays  was 
not  made  until  nearly  a  century  after  his  death.  In 
1709  Nicholas  Rowe  published  all  the  authentic  plays 
(and  six  others)  in  a  seven  volume  edition,  in  which 
many  of  the  typographical  errors  of  the  folios  were  cor- 
rected, all  the  plays  were  for  the  first  time  divided  into 
Acts  and  Scenes,  full  stage  directions  inserted,  and  lists 
of  Dramatis  Personae  given.  From  this  time  on 
editions  multiplied.  The  editors  may  be  di\dded  into 
two — perhaps  three — classes.  First,  those  who  had  a 
profound  reverence  for  Shakespeare,  and  who  made  a 
sufficient  studj'  of  his  plays  to  bring  themselves  into 
sj^mpathy  with  him;  second  those  who  diligently 
gathered  up  the  best  emendations  and  elucidations  of 
the  first  class  and  published  variorum  editions;  third, 
those  who  sought  to  make  over  the  text  to  suit  their 
own  conceptions  and  conceits  of  what  Shakespeare 
should  have  said.  The  labors  of  the  first  two  classes 
of  editors  have  been  invaluable,  those  of  the  third  for 
the  most  part  useless  and  sometimes  detrimental.  In 
the  first  class  we  may  place  Rowe,  Theobald,  Malone, 
Knight,  Collier,  and  Richard  Grant  White.  The  sec- 
ond class  includes  Reed,  who  published  a  variorum 
edition  based  chiefly  upon  the  labors  of  Johnson  and 
Steevens;  James  Boswell,  Jr.,  who  completed  a  vari- 
orum for  Malone;  Singer,  whose  Chiswick  edition  is  an 
abridged  variorum;  the  Furnesses — father  and  son — 
whose  variorum  edition  begun  in  1871  is  now  well 
advanced;  and  Morgan,  whose  Bankside  edition  in- 
cludes the  players'  text  and  the  revised  text  in  parallel 
columns.  The  third  class  is  a  large  one,  but  names 
are  superfluous. 

22 


318  Other  Addresses 

A  second,  and  much  narrower  field  for  the  Shakes- 
pearian hobbyist,  is  Shakespearian  portraits.  The  only- 
representations  of  Shakespeare  known  to  have  had  the 
approval  of  his  contemporaries  are  the  Droeshout 
print,  published  in  the  First  Folio,  only  seven  years 
after  Shakespeare's  death,  and  the  life  size  bust  in 
Stratford  church  which  is  referred  to  in  the  same 
publication  in  the  memorial  verses  of  Leonard  Diggs. 
Seven  other  portraits  engraved  by  Martin  Droeshout 
have  come  down  to  us.  The  Droeshout  print  of 
Shakespeare  is  indirectly  but  strongly  commended  by 
Ben  Jonson  in  lines  printed  with  it,  when  he  says  of 
the  engraver — 

"O,  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit 
As  well  in  brass,  as  he  has  hit 
His  face;  the  Print  would  then  surpass 
All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brass." 

The  Stratford  bust  is  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  a 
Flemish  artist,  Geratt  Johnson,  a  resident  of  London, 
but  of  no  special  reputation.  It  has  the  individuality 
of  a  portrait,  and  may  have  been  made  from  a  mask, 
but  between  the  bust  and  the  so-called  "Kesselstadt 
Death  Mask",  the  differences  are  more  significant  than 
the  resemblances. 

Both  the  print  and  the  bust  represent  a  man  beyond 
the  prime  of  life — a  man  about  as  old  as  Shakespeare 
was  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Of  the  two  the  bust 
presents  the  more  noble,  and  more  poetic  face.  Of 
the  print  there  are  two  proofs  differing  somewhat  from 
the  finished  portrait,  and  evidently  taken  while  the 
plate  was  in  preparation.  These  proofs  indicate  that 
the  engraver  worked  from  a  drawing  of  the  head  only, 
rather  than  from  a  portrait  in  oil,  and  this  has  an 


Shakespeariana  319 

important  bearing  upon  certain  alleged  portraits  of 
Shakespeare. 

The  Droeshout  print  and  the  Stratford  bust  stand  in 
somewhat  the  same  relation  to  other  representations  of 
Shakespeare  as  the  First  FoHo  does  to  other  texts  of 
Shakespeare's  plays.  Neither  is  probably  a  good  hke- 
ness,  but  they  were  not  "pirated"  or  faked  and  must 
for  all  time  give  us  the  nearest  approach  to  Shakes- 
peare's lineaments,  as  the  First  Folio  will  for  all  time 
give  the  world  the  nearest  approach  to  the  real  product 
of  his  genius. 

In  Washington,  D.  C,  if  you  know  where  to  look, 
you  can  find  the  derringer  with  which  Wilkes  Booth 
killed  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  authorities  know  it  is 
the  veritable  pistol  used  by  Booth,  because  it  has  never 
been  out  of  responsible  hands  since  Booth  leaped  to  the 
stage  crying  "Sic  semper  tyrannisJ^  Once  at  least, 
another  derringer  almost  exactly  like  the  real  one,  with 
abundant  certificates  of  genuineness  attached,  has  been 
offered,  at  a  price,  to  the  government. 

Similar  happenings,  as  we  all  know,  are  not  uncom- 
mon where  the  subject  is  one  of  profound  interest. 
The  temptation  to  imitate,  to  plagiarize  Shakespeare 
has  been  tremendous.  The  temptation  to  produce 
something  that  Shakespeare  had  touched,  something 
that  penetrated  in  some  way  the  mystery  that  sur- 
rounds him,  and  to  a  degree  all  writers  of  his  period, 
has  been  almost  irresistible. 

I  shall  refer  to  only  one  instance,  and  I  select  this 
because  it  illustrates  how  even  the  educated,  the  stu- 
dious and  the  reputable  have  fallen  victims. 

In  1852  Mr.  John  Payne  Collier,  then  favorably 
known   as   a   student   of   Elizabethan   literature   and 


320  Other  Addresses 

author  of  an  edition  of  Shakespeare's  works,  pubUshed 
nine  years  before,  announced  that  there  had  fallen  into 
his  hands  a  copy  of  the  second  folio,  the  margins  of 
which  contained  manuscript  corrections  of  the  text,  of 
great  interest  and  value.  The  next  year  Mr,  Collier 
published  a  volume  entitled  "Notes  and  Emendations 
to  the  Text  of  Shakespeare  from  Early  Manuscript 
Corrections  in  a  Copy  of  the  Folio  of  1632."  in  which 
he  included  and  upheld  various  new  readings,  and 
expressed  the  conviction  that  "far  the  greater  body" 
of  them  were  "the  restored  language  of  Shakespeare". 
He  also  published  a  new  edition  of  the  plays  with  the 
new  readings,  and  what  was  asserted  to  be  "A  List  of 
Every  Manuscript  Note  and  Emendation  in  Mr.  Col- 
lier's Copy  of  Shakespeare's  Works,  Folio,  1632".  Four 
years  later  Mr.  Collier  announced  that  he  was  "con- 
vinced that  the  great  majority  of  the  corrections  were 
made,  not  from  better  manuscripts,  still  less  from 
unknown  printed  copies  of  the  plays,  but  from  the 
recitations  of  old  actors  while  the  play  was  proceeding", 
and  that  they  did  "not  represent  the  authentic  lan- 
guage of  Shakespeare". 

Mr.  Collier's  alleged  discoveries  had  meantime  be- 
come the  subject  of  sharp  criticism.  He  had  never 
submitted  his  Folio  to  the  examination  of  Shakespearian 
scholars,  but  gave  it  to  the  father  of  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire,  and  in  1859  the  latter  presented  it  to  the 
British  Museum.  When  the  Museum  authorities  ex- 
amined the  volume  in  order  to  make  an  accurate  de- 
scription of  it,  they  found  its  condition  so  at  variance 
with  Mr.  Collier's  printed  statements  that  an  investi- 
gation was  instituted  which  lasted  two  years,  both 
sides  being  heard.     It  was  found — that  the  volume 


Shakespeariana  321 

contained  nearly  three  times  as  many  marginal  read- 
ings, etc.,  as  were  enumerated  in  Mr.  Collier's  alleged 
"complete  list";  that  these  included  erasures  and 
restorations,  changes  in  punctuation,  speUing  and  stage 
directions,  and  were  written  in  a  modern  cursive  hand ; 
that  many  of  the  corrections  had  been  tampered  with, 
touched  up  or  painted  over,  a  modern  character  being 
dexterously  altered  by  a  pen  into  a  more  antique  form ; 
that  what  appeared  to  be  corrections  in  antique  writing 
in  ink  had  been  made  wdth  paint  which  resembled  ink 
faded  by  time;  that  of  some  penciled  memorandums 
there  were  no  corresponding  changes  in  ink,  one  of 
which  was  in  a  system  of  shorthand  that  did  not  come 
into  use  until  1774;  that  similar  modern  pencil  writing, 
underlying  antique-seeming  words  in  ink,  appeared  in 
the  Bridgewater  Folio,  and  had  first  been  brought  to 
notice  by  Mr.  Collier;  that  some  of  the  pencil  memo- 
randums in  Mr.  Collier's  folio  seemed  to  be  unmis- 
takably in  his  own  handwriting;  that  several  manu- 
scripts purporting  to  be  contemporary  with  Shakes- 
peare, which  Mr.  Collier  had  professed  to  discover, 
and  which  contained  similar  pen  and  ink  changes  had 
been  pronounced  spurious  by  the  highest  authorities. 
Mr.  Richard  Grant  White,  who  early  pointed  out 
the  weakness  of  Mr.  Collier's  claims,  expresses  the 
opinion  that  the  penciled  readings  were  entered  upon 
the  folio  in  the  seventeenth  century,  after  the  Restora- 
tion; that  the  erasures  were  first  made  with  the  pur- 
pose of  preparing  the  plays  for  the  stage;  that  this 
purpose  was  abandoned,  the  erased  portions  restored 
and  the  spelling,  punctuation  and  stage  directions 
changed  with  the  purpose  of  publishing  a  revised 
edition.     As  to  what  happened  to  the  Folio  after  it 


322  ■      Other  Addresses 

came  into  Mr.  Collier's  hands,  Mr.  White  declines 
to  advance  an  opinion,  but  his  opinion  is  indicated 
by  the  expression  of  a  "hope  that  facts  yet  undis- 
covered, or  explanations  not  yet  made,  may  preserve 
this  page  of  letters  from  the  dark  stain  of  im- 
posture". 

The  Ireland  forgeries  I  will  not  take  time  to  discuss. 

Of  real  Shakespeariana  there  is  Uttle  outside  the 
folios  and  quartos.  I  own  but  one  item  which  was 
printed  before  the  Foho  of  1623.  It  is  known  as  "The 
Whole  Contention"  and  while  attributed  to  Shakes- 
peare was  certainly  not  written  by  him.  It  was,  how- 
ever, undoubtedly  the  basis  of  his  II  and  III  Parts  of 
King  Henry  VI,  and  is  rated  as  Shakespeariana. 

Heywood's  Hierarchie  of  the  Blessed  Angels  is  rated 
as  Shakespeariana  because  there  are  plates  in  it  by 
Martin  Droeshout,  and  a  reference  to  Shakespeare  in 
the  text.  Fuller's  Worthies  of  England  and  Dugdale's 
Warwickshire  are  both  so  rated  because  of  references 
to  vShakespeare. 

The  search  for  facts  pertaining  to  Shakespeare's  life 
did  not  begin  until  after  his  death  and  the  death  of  all 
his  contemporaries.  The  only  authentic  data  is  there- 
fore that  embodied  in  documents  of  the  time,  and  upon 
these,  as  they  have  been  brought  to  light  from  time  to 
time,  scholars  have  constructed  an  outline  life  of 
Shakespeare.  Shakespearian  scholars  had  long  de- 
spaired of  any  increase  in  the  store  of  facts  concerning 
him,  when  an  American,  Professor  Charles  William 
Wallace,  of  the  University  of  Nebraska,  entered  the 
field.  Shakespeare's  frequent  use  of  legal  terms  has 
given  rise  to  the  supposition  that  he  may  have  studied 
law  during  the  period  1585-1592  when  we  practically 


Shakespeariana  323 

lose  sight  of  him.  Whether  Professor  Wallace's  in- 
vestigations are  made  with  this  in  mind,  or  not,  the 
two  finds  which  he  has  reported  are  both  of  them 
records  of  lawsuits.  The  first — of  which  an  account 
was  published  in  the  London  Times  in  October,  1909 — 
was  a  lawsuit  brought  by  the  daughter  of  John  Hem- 
inge,  one  of  the  publishers  of  the  First  Folio,  against 
her  father,  on  a  charge  of  misappropriation  of  funds 
held  in  trust  for  her.  These  funds  were  certain  shares 
of  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars  theatres  where  her  hus- 
band was  an  actor.  The  Shakespeare  interest  in  the 
suit  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  deals  with  the  profits  of  these 
theatres  where  Shakespeare's  plays  were  presented, 
and  in  which  he  had  an  interest  as  playwright,  actor 
and  owner  of  shares.  The  profits  on  his  shares,  as 
shown  in  the  Osteler-Heminge  suit,  amounted  to  about 
£600  a  year,  and  accounts  for  the  investments  which 
he  was  able  to  make  in  Stratford,  the  restoration  of 
the  fortunes  of  his  father  and  the  grant  to  his  father  of 
a  coat  of  arms. 

In  March,  1910,  Professor  Wallace  published  in 
Harper's  Magazine  an  account  of  the  discovery  of  still 
more  remarkable  documents.  Apparently  still  follow- 
ing up  legal  clues,  he  discovered  in  the  Public  Record 
Office  of  England  the  records  of  a  lawsuit  tried  in  1612 
in  which  Shakespeare  was  a  witness.  Not  only  was  he 
a  witness  but  the  records  show  that,  for  at  least  six 
years  and  probably  much  longer,  he  had  lodgings  in  the 
house  of  the  defendant.  The  lawsuit  was  a  sordid 
enough  affair — between  one  Bellott  and  his  father-in- 
law  Mount  joy — concerning  the  dower  promised  the 
former  prior  to  his  marriage.  But  Shakespeare's  part 
in  it  gives  this  family  quarrel  that  touch  of  nature 


324  Other  Addresses 

to  which  the  universal  human  heart  responds.  For  he 
it  was  who  brought  about  the  marriage. 

Mount]  oy  was  a  Frenchman  hving  in  London,  a 
maker  of  wigs  and  head-dresses,  to  whom  was  appren- 
ticed, in  1598,  the  French  youth  Bellott.  When  his 
time  expired,  in  1604,  the  old  folks  found  that  their 
daughter  Mary,  who  had  worked  at  his  side  learning 
the  trade,  had  become  fond  of  him.  He  had  served 
them  faithfully,  and  they  were  not  only  not  averse  to 
the  match  but  greatly  desired  it.  But  the  young  man 
was  slow,  and  the  mother  asked  Shakespeare  to  give 
him  to  understand  that  if  he  wished  to  marry  the 
daughter  the  marriage  would  be  agreeable  to  her 
parents,  and  that  they  would  give  her  a  handsome 
dower.  Shakespeare  accomplished  his  mission  and  the 
couple  were  married,  as  the  parish  records  show,  on 
November  19,  1604.  At  first  they  lived  with  the 
Mount  joys,  but  within  less  than  a  year  they  took 
lodgings  with  George  Wilkins,  an  inn-keeper  and 
dramatist,  who  shortly  afterwards  collaborated  with 
Shakespeare  in  the  production  of  two  plays.  Upon 
the  death  of  Mrs.  Mount  joy  in  October,  1606,  the 
Bellots  returned  to  the  parental  roof;  but  at  the 
end  of  a  year  and  a  half  there  was  a  disagreement 
over  business  matters  and  the  lawsuit  followed. 

The  records  of  the  case  consist  of  twenty-six  docu- 
ments in  which  Shakespeare's  name  is  mentioned 
twenty-four  times,  and  his  testimony  is  signed  by  his 
own  hand.  He  deposes  that  he  is  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
county  of  Warwick,  of  the  age  of  48  years  or  there- 
abouts; that  he  has  known  the  parties  to  the  suit  for 
about  ten  years;  that  he  knew  Bellott  during  the  time 
of  his  service  with  Mount  joy,  and  that  to  his  knowledge 


Shakespeariana  325 

Bellott  behaved  himself  well  and  honestly;  and  he 
thinks  he  was  a  very  good  and  industrious  servant; 
that  it  appeared  Mountjoy  did,  all  the  time  of  Bellott's 
service,  show  great  good  will  and  affection  toward 
him;  that  he  had  heard  Mountjoy  and  his  wife  at 
divers  and  sundry  times  say  and  report  that  Bellott 
was  a  very  honest  fellow;  that  Mountjoy  did  make  a 
motion  unto  Bellott  of  a  marriage  with  his  daughter 
Mary;  that  Mountjoy's  wife  did  solicit  and  entreat 
the  deponent  to  move  and  persuade  Bellott  to  effect 
the  said  marriage,  and  accordingly  the  deponent  did 
move  and  persuade  Bellott  thereto;  that  Mountjoy 
promised  to  give  Bellott  a  portion  in  marriage  with 
his  daughter,  but  what  certain  portion  he  does  not 
remember  nor  when  it  has  to  be  paid,  nor  whether 
Mountjoy  promised  Bellott  £200  at  his  own  decease; 
but  he  says  Bellott  was  dwelling  with  Mountjoy  in 
his  house,  and  they  had  among  themselves  many 
conferences  about  the  marriage  which  was  afterward 
consummated. 

Shakespeare's  testimony  taken  by  itself  does  not  es- 
tabhsh  the  fact  of  his  residence  in  the  Mountjoy  house; 
but  another  witness — Mrs.  Johnson — testifies  that  she 
was  a  servant  in  the  Mountjoy  household  when  Bellott 
was  an  apprentice  and  she  remembered  Mountjoy  did 
send  and  persuade  one  Mr.  Shakespeare  that  lay  in  the 
house  to  persuade  Bellott  to  the  marriage  with  his 
daughter.  Another  witness,  Daniel  Nicholas,  also 
testified  that  he  heard  one  Wm.  Shakespeare  say  that 
Mountjoy  did  move  Bellott  by  him  the  said  Shakes- 
peare, to  have  a  marriage  between  his  daughter  and 
Bellott  and  for  this  purpose  sent  him,  the  said  Shakes- 
peare,  to  Bellott  to  persuade  him  to  the  same,   as 


326  Other  Addresses 

Shakespeare  told  him,  which  marriage  was  effected 
upon  promise  of  a  portion  with  her;  that  Bellott  re- 
quested the  witness  to  go  with  his  wife  to  Shakespeare 
to  ascertain  how  much  and  what  Mountjoy  promised 
to  bestow  on  his  daughter  in  marriage;  and  that  he  did 
so,  and  that  upon  asking  Shakespeare  thereof,  he  an- 
swered that  as  he  remembered,  he  would  give  her  in 
marriage  about  £50  in  money  and  certain  household 
stuff.  An  apprentice  of  Bellott,  one  WiUiam  Eaton, 
also  testified  that  he  had  heard  one  Mr,  Shakespeare  say 
he  was  sent  by  Mountjoy  to  Bellott  to  have  a  mar- 
riage between  Bellott  and  Mount  joy's  daughter,  and 
that  he  had  heard  Mr,  Shakespeare  say  that  he  was 
wished  bj^  Mountjoy  to  make  proffer  of  a  certain  sum 
that  Mountjoy  said  he  would  give  Bellott  with  his 
daughter  in  marriage. 

The  dramatist,  George  Wilkins,  testified  as  to  the 
goods  the  Bellotts  brought  with  them  when  they  came 
to  sojourn  with  him.  The  testimony  of  other  wit- 
nesses showed  that  Mountjoy  had  two  houses  which 
netted  him  an  income  of  about  £17  to  £20  a  year, 
besides  his  own  rent  and  the  rent  of  a  "sojourner" 
with  him.  The  houses  are  described  "the  one  wherein 
he  dwelleth,  divided  into  two  tenements,  and  a  lease 
of  a  house  in  Brainford".  The  house  he  dwelt  in  is 
described  as  a  "house  in  Muggle  Street  and  in  Silver 
Street" — that  is  on  the  corner.  As  there  were  but 
two  corners,  and  other  documents  show  that  "Neville's 
Inn"  was  on  the  west  side  of  the  street,  the  Mountjoy 
house  is  definitely  located.  Here,  then,  Shakespeare 
seems  to  have  lived  during  all  the  time  of  Bellott 's 
apprenticeship,  from  1598  to  1604,  and  in  1612  Mount- 
joy still   had   a  "sojourner  in   his  house  with  him". 


Shakespeariana  327 

This  house  was  burned  in  1666,  and  the  building  now 
occupying  the  site  belongs  to  New  College,  Oxford 
University,  and  is  an  inn  known  as  "Coopers  Arms". 
The  location  was  described  in  1603  by  John  Stowe 
as  one  "in  which  there  be  divers  faire  houses",  and  by 
Ben  Jonson  as  "the  region  of  money,  a  good  seat  for  an 
usurer".  Shakespeare  must  have  been  a  prosperous 
man  to  live  there.  In  the  parish  on  the  North  lived 
Ben  Jonson,  Nathaniel  Field,  Thomas  Dekker,  An- 
thony Munday,  and  William  Johnson;  to  the  east  and 
south  were  the  homes  of  John  Heminge  and  Henry 
Condell,  and  Shakespeare's  way  to  the  theatre  would 
take  him  by  their  doors,  and  past  the  Mermaid  Tavern. 
It  would  also  take  him  past  the  house  in  Bread  Street 
where  John  Milton  was  born,  and  where  he  was  a  boy 
eight  years  of  age  at  Shakespeare's  death.  Shakes- 
peare was  already  a  man  to  be  pointed  out  as  he 
walked  the  street,  and  Milton's  poetic  taste  mani- 
fested itself  early.  Shakespeare's  only  son  died  at  the 
age  of  eleven;  John  Milton,  as  we  know  from  an  early 
portrait,  was  a  handsome  boy.  Was  it  of  a  stranger, 
or  of  a  man  who  had  been  pointed  out  to  him  as  "the 
great  poet"  and  who  often  gave  him  kindly  greeting 
as  he  passed,  that  Milton  afterward  wrote 

"MY  Shakespeare" — 
"Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame." 

The  discoveries  of  Professor  Wallace  have  added  one 
more  to  the  authentic  autographs  of  Shakespeare,- and 
this  one  being  abbreviated  has  confirmed  the  authen- 
ticity of  another  which  was  before  doubted  because  it 
was  abbreviated.  He  has  shown  us  Shakespeare  as  a 
"sojourner"  in  the  house  of  a  Frenchman  and  on  such 
intimate  terms  with  the  family  that  he  is  appealed  to 


328  Other  Addresses 

in  an  affair  that  was  about  equally  love  and  business. 
One  of  these  plays  written  during  this  sojourn  was 
King  Henry  V ,  in  which  we  have  the  amusing  attempt 
of  Katherine  to  learn  English  from  her  maid  Alice;  the 
bluster  and  threats  of  Pistol  to  his  French  prisoner, 
which  are  put  into  French  by  a  boy;  the  love-making 
of  King  Henry  to  Katherine,  of  which  she  understands 
a  little  and  guesses  the  rest;  and  finally  Shakespeare 
has  immortalized  his  host  in  the  French  herald  Mont- 
joy,  who  pronounces  his  defiance  and  craves  favor 
for  the  conquered,  in  good  English. 

That  no  really  new  and  authentic  information  con- 
cerning Shakespeare  should  have  been  discovered  for 
over  two  hundred  years  and  until  Professor  Wallace 
uncovered  these  old  Court  records  may  be  a  bit  dis- 
couraging to  the  Hobbyist;  but  this  clear  location  of 
the  man  during  a  period  which  has  hitherto  been  a 
period  of  mystery  is  a  great  comfort  to  the  Shakes- 
pearian devotee.  It  leaves  less  room  for  those  mys- 
teries out  of  which  theories  Baconian  and  others  may 
be  hatched. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Shakespearian  students  and 
Hobbyists  have  never  given  sufficient  study  to  Richard 
Burbage.  Few  men  reahze  what  a  part  he  played  in 
the  development  of  Shakespeare's  genius.  He  was 
the  leading  tragic  actor  of  the  time  and  the  leading 
man  of  Shakespeare's  company.  Undoubtedly  Shakes- 
peare wrote  some  of  his  greatest  pieces  with  Burbage 
in  mind.  They  were  fitted  to  a  degree  to  Burbage's 
equipment.  Burbage  probably  played  Hamlet  and 
Lear  and  Macbeth  and  Othello  and  other  great  roles, 
the  first  time  they  were  ever  presented.  This  alone 
ought  to  give  him  a  kind  of  Godship  amongst  actors, 


Shakespeariana  329 

but  I  have  never  observed  the  existence  of  such  a 
sentiment. 

The  Alpha  and  Omega  of  Shakespeariana  is,  and 
probably  always  will  be,  the  Folio  of  1623.  I  have 
criticised  its  editors.  They  deserve  it.  But  the  ser- 
vice to  literature  which  lies  in  what  they  did  is  so  vast 
that  criticism  is  after  all  a  work  of  supererogation. 
Admitting  that  they  were  the  blind  tools  of  fate,  still 
the  editors  did  this  great  thing.  For  what  would  our 
literature  be  if  they  had  not  done  it?  What  fame 
indeed  would  Shakespeare  have  otherwise?  The  doors 
of  obli\ion  had  all  but  closed  on  much  that  Shakespeare 
had  done  when  this  book  came  from  the  press.  The 
plays  already  published  in  the  quartos,  like  the  two 
long  poems  and  the  sonnets,  would  have  survived 
probably,  but  without  the  work  of  Heminge  and 
Condell  and  their  associates,  there  is  small  probability 
that  we  should  to-day  know  that  such  a  play  as  The 
Tempest  ever  existed,  or  Julius  Caesar,  or  Macbeth,  or 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  or  As  You  Like  It,  or  Coriolanus, 
and  others. 

From  the  day  the  First  Folio  w^as  issued,  Shakes- 
peare's fame  steadily  advanced  to  the  conquest  of  the 
world. 

The  time  is  not  very  far  off  when  substantially  every 
extant  copy  of  the  First  Folio  and  every  quarto  issued 
prior  to  1650  will  be  located  in  the  great  public,  or  Uni- 
versity, libraries  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  They 
will  ultimately  come  to  be  items  having  such  a  uni- 
versal interest  that  private  ownership  would  be  as 
anomalous  as  private  ownership  now  would  be  of  the 
Last  Judgment  or  the  Night  Watch  or  the  Last  Supper. 
We  who  collect  and  preserve  these  sacred  reUcs  do 


330  Other  Addresses 

more  than  gratify  our  tastes  and  educate  our  own  souls : 
we  help  to  project  through  the  darkness  that  inevi- 
tably falls  over  the  track  of  the  centuries,  a  ray  of 
light  which  will  tell  the  coming  generations  of  the 
veritable  existence  of  that  supreme  genius  who  took 
the  EngHsh  language  when  it  was  crude  and  made  it  so 
flexible  and  sonorous  that  it  is  like  to  become  "the 
common  speech  of  the  world, — who  sprang  from 
parents  not  far  removed  from  illiteracy  to  become  the 
wonder,  "the  study  and  the  admiration  of  di\ines  and 
philosophers,  of  soldiers  and  statesmen  *  *  *  •  who 
has  touched  many  spirits  finely  to  fine  issues,  and  has 
been  for  three  centuries  a  source  of  dehght  and  under- 
standing, of  wisdom  and  consolation." 


SOME  JEFFERSONIAN  MAXIMS 


AN  AFTER-DIN'NER  RESPONSE 

DELIVERED  JANUARY  15,  1912,  AT  THE  ANNUAL  BANQUET  OF  THE 

NEW  YORK  STATE  BANKER'S  ASSOCIATION  (GROUP 

VIIJ)    WALDORF-ASTORIA,  NEW  YORK 


HOMAS  JEFFERSON  wrote  at  the  top  of 
our  political  credo  two  maxims,  the  truth 
of  which  he  declared  was  self-evident.  (1) 
That  all  men  are  created  equal.  (2)  That 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  unalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

In  order  to  sustain  the  first  declaration,  political 
writers  have  indulged  in  more  exegetical  flip-flaps  than 
would  be  necessary  to  prove  that  the  world  was  made 
in  six  days.  The  world  was  not  made  in  six  days, 
whatever  the  meaning  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
may  be;  and  men  are  not  created  equal,  whatever 
Jefferson  may  have  meant  by  his  immortal  dictum. 

The  difference  between  nien  at  birth,  congenital 
differences,  are  as  great  as  those  between  two  tender 
shps  just  pushing  their  tops  into  the  sunlight,— one 
to  become  a  primrose  pale,  the  other  a  towering  sequoia. 
There  are  only  a  few  sequoias  on  earth  now,  just  as 
there  are  at  any  given  time  only  a  few  really  great 
and  strong  men  on  earth.  In  order  that  we  may 
properly  admire  our  sequoias,  we  put  them  on  a  reser- 
vation ;  if  I  were  to  describe  the  sort  of  reservation  into 

331 


332  Other  Addresses 

which  a  considerable  section  of  society  would  like  to 
place  some  of  our  great  men,  I  might  be  charged  with 
an  attempt  to  impede  the  orderly  enforcement  of  the 
criminal  law. 

We  began  to  disprove  Jefferson's  first  "self-evident" 
truth  politically  when  we  wrote  our  fundamental  law; 
we  began  to  disprove  it  industrially  as  soon  as  we  went 
to  work  under  the  impulse  of  a  national  consciousness, 
as  soon  as  our  congenital  differences  felt  the  quickening 
power  of  opportunity.  We  were  a  little  slow  in  com- 
prehending our  opportunities;  we  were  a  little  late  in 
getting  to  work.  But  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War 
the  stage  was  finally  set  for  the  presentation  of  the 
industrial  drama  for  which  all  previous  history  had 
been  in  a  sense  a  preparation.  The  tragedy  was  over. 
The  question  of  where  sovereignty  resided  had  been 
settled.  Some — not  all — of  the  conflicting  theories 
which  created  the  Confederation,  which  threatened  the 
Colonies  with  chaos  and  ruin,  which  lived  insidiously 
in  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  had  been 
reconciled  by  the  arbitrament  of  war.  Nation  building 
industrially  and  commercially  then  began. 

If  Jefferson's  first  maxim  had  been  true,  the  inter- 
vening years  would  not  be  filled,  as  they  are,  with  a 
record  of  glorious  and  imperishable  achievement;  they 
would  record  the  futile  and  hopeless  efforts  of  medio- 
crity. But  Jefferson  in  his  first  dictum  was  WTong, 
utterly,  eternally  wrong.  Every  fact  in  the  situation 
after  Appomattox  was  potentiallj"  a  denial  of  the  first 
of  Jefferson's  self-evident  truths.  The  hunger  of  the 
centuries  was  ours,  and  before  us  lay  the  Garden  of 
Promise.  The  hope  of  all  the  millions  who  had  sought 
opportunity  and  found  httle  was   in  our  souls;  and 


Some  Jeffersonian  Maxims  333 

before  us  lay  a  continent  which  could  keep  the  promise 
both  to  the  ear  and  to  the  hope.  The  imagination  of 
all  the  men  and  women  who  had  dreamed  and  died 
dreaming,  burst  into  activitj-  in  us.  We  seized  op- 
portunity with  a  determination  which  infused  into 
action  the  ecstasy  of  battle.  Courage,  energy,  fore- 
sight, capacity,  swept  on  to  their  logical,  if  sometimes 
ruthless  and  cruel  triumphs.  Cowardice,  sloth,  im- 
providence, and  incapacity,  bore  fruit  that  was  perhaps 
more  than  ordinarily  bitter.  The  unequal  powers  and 
qualities  of  men  not  only  asserted  themselves,  but  were 
emphasized.  The  sequoias  began  to  rear  their  splendid 
tops  even  over  the  great  pines,  the  cedars  and  the  oaks : 
they  in  turn  overshadowed  the  trees  of  smaller  growth. 
Industrial  and  commercial  development  went  on 
stupendously,  and  without  overmuch  thought  of  either 
the  written  or  the  unwritten  law.  We  traveled  so  fast 
that  it  took  nearly  twenty  years  to  discover  that  we  had 
been  engaging  in  business  practices  prohibited  and 
made  crimes  by  law.  Out  of  this  condition  have 
sprung  the  problems  of  the  day. 

They  assume  three  phases: 

1st. — Problems  caused  by  fear — fear  inspired  by  the 
activities  and  size  of  modern  corporations. 
This  fear  is  merely  a  reincarnation  of  the  feel- 
ing which  led  the  farmers  of  England  to  attack 
Stephenson  when  he  built  the  first  railroad;  a 
reincarnation  of  the  fear  which  caused  such 
vehement  opposition  to  the  Constitution  in 
1789;  a  reincarnation  of  the  feeling  which  has 
so  frequently  caused  riot  and  murder  when 
labor-saving  machinery  has  been  introduced. 

23 


334  Other  Addresses 

2d. — Problems  following  the  wrongs  committed  by 
these  corporations,  first  under  the  barbarism  of 
ruthless  competition,  and  second  under  the 
cruelty  of  monopoly  to  which  competition 
automatically  and  logically  leads. 

3d. — Problems  growing  out  of  the  civic  demoraliza- 
tion which  followed  when  the  best  brains  and 
character  of  the  country  abandoned  statecraft 
for  business. 

Now  as  to  the  remedy.  Every  after-dinner  speaker 
has  a  remedy.    Else  why  have  after-dinner  speakers! 

It  is  certain  that  a  condition  created  by  twenty-five 
years  of  almost  unchecked  industrial  growth  on  the  one 
side  and  civic  atrophy  on  the  other,  cannot  be  cured  by 
any  quackery,  by  any  specific,  by  any  cure-all  legisla- 
tion. The  chief  trouble  is  fear.  General  business  is 
now  in  an  unusually  sound  condition,  but  it  is  disturbed. 
It  isn't  greatly  menaced  by  the  amazing  attitude  of  the 
Department  of  Justice  in  Washington — but  it  thinks 
it  is.  The  people  are  also  disturbed.  They  are  not 
menaced  by  the  mere  size  of  corporations,  but  they 
think  they  are.  Capital  is  afraid;  the  people  are  afraid. 
You  can't  banish  fear  by  legislation.  If  you  legislate 
hurriedly,  you  will  probably  increase  it,  and  at  the 
same  time  you  may  destroy  the  beneficent  power  of 
certain  natural  processes  in  w^hich,  after  all,  the  real 
remedy  lies. 

When  general  business  comes  to  realize,  as  it  will 
after  a  little,  that  the  Sherman  Law  means  no  more  to 
it  than  the  law  against  larceny  means  to  the  average 
upright  citizen, — that  will  be  a  remedy.  When  the 
people  come  to  understand,  as  they  will  after  a  while. 


Some  Jeffersonian  Maxims  335 

that  the  shameful  record  which  hes  at  the  doors  of  the 
American  Sugar  Company  in  Brooklyn,  does  not  rep- 
resent either  the  methods  or  the  ideas  of  general 
business — that  will  be  a  remedy.  When  the  prudent 
and  law-abiding  masses  learn,  as  they  will  soon,  that 
the  McNamaras  and  the  other  criminals  higher  up 
who  have  not  yet  confessed,  do  not  represent  either  the 
ideas  or  the  methods  of  the  laboring  man — that  will 
be  a  remedy. 

When  the  Supreme  Court  has  rendered  a  controlling 
opinion,  as  it  will  in  time,  which  in  terms  of  a  specific 
corporation  tells  business  what  it  can  do — ha\dng 
already  told  what  it  can't  do — that  will  be  a  remedy. 

When  we  settle  another  phase  of  State  Rights  by 
holding,  as  we  ultimately  must,  that  all  business  trans- 
actions between  residents  of  different  States  shall  be 
regulated  by  our  national,  and  not  by  our  state, 
citizenship, — that  will  be  a  remedy. 

When  sinful  business— whether  so  consciously  or 
unconsciously — learns,  as  it  will  and  with  no  further 
legislation,  that  there  is  a  power  in  public  opinion 
beyond  even  the  power  of  statutes— that  will  be  a 
remedy. 

WTien  men  stop  for  breath,  under  the  strenuous 
demands  of  business  and  ask  whether  they  have  done 
their  duty  as  citizens  under  the  contract  which  they 
made  with  society  in  the  right  of  franchise — that  will 
be  a  remedy. 

There  are  proposals,  on  the  other  hand,  which  just 
as  certainly  are  not  remedies. 

A  campaign  for  the  disorganization  of  highly  organ- 
ized business  is  no  remedy.  What  we  need  is  not  less 
efficiency  anywhere;  we  want  all  the  efficiency  in  busi- 


336  Other  Addresses 

ness  that  we  now  have,  and  the  same  efficiency  in 
statecraft. 

To  destroy  the  strong  is  no  remedy.  We  need  all 
the  strength  we  have. 

To  make  success  a  crime  is  no  remedy,  because  life 
and  liberty  cannot  be  protected  by  failure. 

To  compel  the  Supreme  Court  to  enter  a  contest  in 
guessing  the  missing  word  will  not  do  as  a  permanent 
remedy.    All  the  Court  might  not  always  guess  right. 

A  return  to  ruthless  competition  is  no  remed5^  The 
attempt  of  the  President  and  the  Attorney  General  to 
compel  men  who  have  adopted  the  law  of  co-operation 
to  abandon  it  and  return  to  the  barbarism  of  competi- 
tion will  be  as  futile  as  was  the  attempt  of  the  Emperor 
Julian  (a  Pagan  at  heart)  to  compel  the  restoration, 
in  a  Christian  age,  of  the  worship  of  the  ancient  gods. 
The  historian  tells  us  that  Juhan  met  with  bitter  dis- 
appointment. ''On  the  day  of  the  annual  festival", 
says  Gibbon,  ''he  hastened  to  adore  the  Apollo  of 
Daphne.  Instead  of  hecatombs  of  fat  oxen  sacrificed 
by  the  tribes  of  a  wealth}-  city  to  their  tutelar  deity, 
the  Emperor  found  onl}^  a  single  goose  provided  at  the 
expense  of  a  priest."  Juhan  failed,  and  he  was  an 
Emperor.  If  those  officials  who  are  now  attempting 
to  compel  business  to  abandon  its  new  faith  and  re- 
adopt  a  dying  paganism,  would  cast  their  own  political 
horoscopes  thej^  will  do  well  to  remember  Juhan's  end 
because  that  end  will  be  theirs  politically.  Tradition, 
if  not  historj^,  says  that  when  wounded  and  dying  in 
the  deserts  of  Persia,  Julian  cast  his  own  blood  toward 
Heaven  and  cried  "Thou  hast  conquered,  0  Gahlean!" 

The  prodigious  growth  of  the  last  forty  years  has 
been  substantially  confined  to  industry  and  commerce. 


Some  J effersonian  Maxims  337 

In  no  portion  of  our  governmental  machinery,  from  the 
school-house  to  the  White  House — except  perhaps  in 
the  army  and  na\'y — have  we  since  1865  made  any 
very  marked  progress  in  methods,  ideas,  efficiency  or 
men.  On  the  other  hand,  in  methods,  in  ideas,  in 
efficiency,  and  especiallj''  in  men,  commerce  and  industry 
have  made,  during  the  same  period,  progress  which  is 
nothing  less  than  revolutionary. 

Revolutionary  achievements — whether  in  govern- 
ment or  industry — are  likely  to  follow  revolutionary 
methods  and  be  followed  by  revolutionary  results. 
There  isn't  so  much  difference  after  all  between  an 
unlimited  opportunity  in  commerce  and  industry  and 
an  unlimited  opportunity  in  war.  Strength  and  brains 
and  resources  win  in  each  case,  and  the  battle  which 
precedes  the  erection  of  a  great  industry  as  well  as 
the  battle  which  precedes  the  erection  of  a  great 
dynasty,  frequently  leaves  a  field  strewn  with  sicken- 
ing evidences  that  men  are  not  created  equal.  Industry 
as  we  conduct  it  is  war.  Commerce  is  war.  The 
"industrial  army"  is  a  well-chosen  phrase.  If  the  work- 
ers in  our  shops  may  be  called  an  army,  then  the 
limited  train,  the  fast  freight,  the  telegraph  and  the 
telephone  are,  if  I  may  strain  a  figure  of  speech,  the 
navy  which  strikes  at  enemies  near  and  far.  (That 
may  be  an  Irish  navy  but  is  the  only  kind  of  a  com- 
mercial navy  we  have.) 

All  this  has  inspired  fear  and  incidentally  committed 
wrongs.  The  fear  and  the  wrong  might  have  been  miti- 
gated, perhaps  entirely  avoided,  if  business  had  heeded 
the  everlasting  truth  of  Jefferson's  second  maxim. 

Just  what,  now,  does  the  second  maxim  mean?  What 
is  its  philosophy? 


338  Other  Addresses 

The  right  to  life!  That  means  the  right  to  a  place  in 
the  sun;  it  means  that,  after  all,  life  is  the  only  real 
value.  It  means  the  Golden  Rule.  We  call  that  race 
solidarity. 

The  right  to  liberty!  That  means  the  right  to  think, 
to  assemble,  to  speak.  It  means,  too,  that  a  man  who 
knows  liberty  to  be  only  another  word  for  duty  and 
does  his  duty,  may  not  be  crushed  by  the  so-called 
necessities  of  business  success.  We  call  that  race 
consciousness. 

The  right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness!  This  part  of 
Jefferson's  maxim  seems  just  a  well-sounding  phrase, 
because  happiness  doesn't  always  go  with  success,  nor 
is  it  a  stranger  to  failure.  But  happiness  is  always 
absent  when  there  is  a  sense  of  wrong.  If  society  is  so 
organized  as  to  protect  life  and  safeguard  liberty, 
happiness  can  make  shift  for  itself. 

In  the  fierce  conflicts  of  the  last  generation,  we  have 
forgotten  this  philosophy.  We  have  assumed  that  the 
great  principles  set  forth  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  crystallized  into  fundamental  law  in  the 
Constitution  were  safe  beyond  attack  and  needed  no 
attention.  We  have  assumed  that  they  really  bore  no 
relation  to  business;  we  have  assumed  that  they  bore 
only  an  academic  relation  to  our  current  work;  that  they 
belonged  to  the  sphere  of  civil  government,  and  not  to 
the  world  of  industry  and  commerce.  Now  we  are 
discovering  our  error;  we  are  beginning  to  realize  that 
exploitation  is  exploitation,  whether  it  is  employed  by 
an  English  King  or  by  an  American  corporation;  that 
life  and  liberty  may  be  as  directly  attacked  by  business 
methods  as  by  political  institutions. 

Who,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  the  good,  and  who  is  the 


Some  Jeffersonian  Maxims  339 

bad,  citizen?  Is  the  man  who  takes  his  right  of  franchise 
at  twenty-one,  plunges  into  business  with  all  his  powers 
and  thinks  of  politics  only  when  it  impedes  his  progress, 
a  good,  or  a  bad,  citizen? 

Under  our  form  of  government,  with  the  pledge  to 
preserve  life  and  liberty  for  his  fellows  as  well  as  for 
himself,  where  as  between  statecraft  and  business  does 
this  man's  first,  where  does  his  higher,  obligation  lie? 
How  has  he  regarded  it?  How  much  thought  or  time 
or  conviction  has  he  devoted  to  the  doctrine  of  self- 
government,  to  the  contract  which  he  made  with  all 
his  fellows  when  he  took  the  rights  and  privileges  which 
inhere  in  manhood  suffrage?  We  know,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  in  this  country  most  of  the  men  who  have 
done  things  in  the  last  generation  have  deserted  state- 
craft utterly.  They  did  not  intend  to  desert;  they  are 
not  now  conscious  that  they  are  deserters,  but  they  are. 
They  are  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  industrially;  they  are 
full  of  the  ecstasy  of  battle  and  of  conquest ;  they  are 
doing  big  things, — things  that  they  believe  are  for  the 
good  of  humanity,  as  they  are— but  they  are  to  a 
degree  unconscious  of  the  fact,  and  their  work  has  made 
them  unconscious  of  the  fact,  that  weaker  men  have 
certain  unalienable  rights  which  even  the  necessities 
of  success  must  respect.  These  men  have  come  to 
refer  to  the  politician  with  contempt.  If  the  average 
politician  is  contemptible,  who  made  him  so?  Op- 
portunity makes  the  thief,  and  no  faithless  treasurer, 
innocent  of  theft  himself,  who  has  left  his  vaults  open 
and  his  books  unchecked  was  ever  morally  more  guilty 
than  is  the  average  business  man  who,  in  his  eager 
pursuit  of  success  has  abandoned  his  civic  obligations 
and  turned  the  conduct  of  government  over  to  men 


340  Other  Addresses 

whom  he  holds  in  contempt.  Unconsciously  the  busi- 
ness man  has  degenerated  as  a  citizen.  He  has  shpped 
from  point  to  point  as  emergencies  have  arisen,  first 
neglecting  legislation  himself  and  then  hiring  la'wyers 
to  tell  him  how  he  could  get  around  laws  that  seem  to 
impede  his  progress. 

Finally  the  explosion  came  in  the  Ufe  insurance  in- 
vestigation of  1905.  Now  we  have  a  fresh  explosion 
every  morning. 

Most  of  the  remedies  suggested  seem  to  me  like 
mending  a  clock  by  tinkering  with  its  hands.  Before 
we  can  plan  any  affirmative  remedy,  we  must  get  back 
to  the  contract  by  virtue  of  which  we  are  citizens  of  the 
Repubhc.  WTien  that  contract  is  carried  out,  remedies 
will  suggest  themselves.  But  how  enforce  the  contract? 
Can  it  be  enforced  at  all?  Must  we  rely  entirely  upon 
the  citizen's  sense  of  responsibility  and  continue  to 
make  prosecuting  attorneys  into  statesmen  because  all 
our  real  statesmen  are  busy  making  money?  Already 
in  our  pitiful  tinkering  with  the  situation,  we  have  been 
obliged  to  make  numberless  things  statutory  crimes 
which  are  in  themselves  no  more  crimes  than  it  is  for 
me  to  address  you.  In  this  State  we  have  made  success 
a  crime.  "WTiat  we  have  made  crimes  under  the  Sher- 
man puzzle  only  our  humorous  Attornej^  General  can 
tell.  Which  leads  me  to  remark  that  if  the  order  of 
creation  could  have  been  reversed  and  man  made  on 
the  first  instead  of  the  last  daj^,  the  Creative  Fiat 
might  have  produced  an  Attorney  General  at  the  very 
beginning,  and  that  circumstance  might  have  changed 
all  history.  Because,  that  officer  introduced  to  a  world 
that  was  already  "without  form  and  void"  would  have 
had  no  occupation,  and  when  the  Creator  had  examined 


Some  Jeffersonian  Maxims  341 

the  work  of  that  day  He  might  not  have  called  it 
"good".  In  that  event  the  first  Attorney  General 
would  have  been  the  last.  Think  what  that  would  mean! 

Whatever  new  legislation  may  be  needed  or  enacted 
at  the  present  time,  we  shall  never  reach  our  ideal  of  a 
self-governed  people  carrying  on  great  industrial  enter- 
prises with  justice  and  fairness,  until  both  politicians 
and  business  men  cease  to  "work  for  their  own  pockets 
all  the  time".  In  politics  we  must  have  the  efficiency 
of  business.  In  business  we  must  have  more  of  race 
consciousness  and  something  of  the  Golden  Rule,  and  a 
full  recognition  of  the  truth  of  Jefferson's  second  maxim. 

Until  we  make  this  fundamental  correction,  we  shall 
probably  go  on  enacting  more  laws,  defining  new  crimes, 
only  to  face  the  necessity  each  time  of  hiring  another 
lawyer. 

The  great  remedy  therefore  lies  in  a  civic  renaissance; 
in  a  re-creation  of  the  sense  of  civic  obligation  which  the 
fathers  felt ;  in  the  knowledge  and  the  high  ideals  which 
Longfellow  expressed  when,  apostrophizing  the  Union 
in  his  poem  The  Building  of  the  Skip,  he  said: 

"We  know  what  Master  laid  thy  keel, 
What  workmen  wrought  thy  ribs  of  steel, 

Who  made  each  mast,  and  sail,  and  rope, 
What  anvils  rang,  what  hammers  beat, 
In  what  a  forge,  and  what  a  heat 

Were  shaped  the  anchors  of  thy  hope." 

That  knowledge  we  have  in  part  at  least  forgotten; 
those  ideals  we  have  almost  wholly  neglected.  Before 
we  can  make  a  sound  beginning  in  solving  the  problems 
of  the  day  we  must  stop  legislating  all  the  time,  go  back, 
acquire  that  knowledge  over  again  and  give  to  citizen- 
ship a  part  at  least  of  the  idealism  and  power  which  we 
now  give  almost  wholly  to  business. 


LIFE  INSURANCE  AND  THE 
SUPREME  PURPOSE 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  A  CONFERENCE  OF  THE 

LEADING  FIELDMEN  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

HOTEL  CHAMPLAIN,  BLUFF  POINT,  N.  Y., 

SEPTEMBER  17,  1912 


HAT  title  suggests  that  I  claim  to  know 
what  the  Supreme  Purpose  is.  I  immedi- 
ately file  a  disclaimer.  I  claim  no  such 
knowledge.  I  leave  that  to  those  who  will 
probably  criticise  me  for  my  lack  of  faith. 
We  are  beginning  to  understand  that  a  man  may 
love  justice,  may  long  for  a  better  social  order,  may 
have  visions  of  society  dominated  by  advanced  ideals, 
without  making  anj'  claim  to  completeness  of  know- 
ledge, accompanied  indeed  by  the  admission  that 
knowledge  is  very  incomplete.  Moreover  these  ideals 
may  be  so  clear,  their  benefits  so  certain,  their  attain- 
ment so  desirable,  that  their  power  becomes  as  com- 
pelling to  those  who  have  that  vision  as  it  could  be  if 
they  were  the  product  of  Divine  Revelation.  For  their 
estabhshment  men  may  be  willing  to  fight,  even  to 
die.  They  have  done  that;  they  are  doing  it.  That 
men  will  continue  so  to  act  is  one  of  the  inspiring, 
prophetic  facts  of  our  day. 

That  men  should  fight  and  die  for  what  they  believe 
to  be  the  Divine  Will  is  not  strange — I  am  not  sure  that 
is  even  greatly  to  be  praised.    If  they  failed  so  to  act,  we 

342 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       343 

would  despise  them.  That  men  are  willing  to  fight  for 
truths  which  they  have  discovered  by  experiment,  ex- 
perience and  toil,  is  a  fact  of  a  newer  sort  and  of  an 
unmistakable  significance.  Even  revelations,  so-called, 
are  beginning  to  have  respect  for  each  other.  The 
followers  of  truth  so  discovered  are  beginning  to  hear  a 
common  voice  in  expressions  which  on  their  face  are 
very  diverse.  It  gave  the  Christian  world  pause  re- 
cently when  it  saw  the  whole  Japanese  nation  on  its 
knees  praying  for  the  fife  of  a  beloved  Ruler,  and 
praying  to  a  God  who  is  not  the  Christian's  God.  Even 
faiths  change.  Jupiter  no  longer  sits  in  Olympus, 
Apollo  no  longer  roams  the  groves  of  Greece.  The 
Gods  of  Egypt  are  dead.  Each  of  those  ancient  re- 
ligions represented  at  bottom  practically  what  present- 
day  religions  represent.  Moreover  in  every  great 
religious  system  at  all  related  to  Christianity  or  Is- 
lamism  there  lives  much  that  came  from  the  worship 
of  Gods  that  are  dead  and  rituals  that  are  otherwise 
forgotten. 

Revelation — so-called — therefore  is  in  course  of  time 
engrafted  on  later  revelations,  which  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  truth,  or  what  seems  to  be  truth, 
survives.  Everything,  even  revelation,  comes  at  last 
to  the  test  of  experience. 

As  between  what  we  call  revelation  and  that  slow 
and  painful  process  which  seeks  the  truth  through 
evidence,  the  latter  holds  an  increasingly  important 
place  in  the  work  of  the  world.  I  shall  not  quarrel  with 
you  if  you  say  that  what  science  has  compassed  is 
merely  another  form  of  revelation.  It  is.  Science 
does  not  claim  to  arrive  at  the  Supreme  Purpose.  It 
makes  clear  the  fact  that  there  is  such  a  purpose,  and 


344  Other  Addresses 

it  gives  the  student  a  grip  on  himself  and  on  eternal 
verities  after  the  claims  of  revelation  have  not  infre- 
quently left  him  merely  an  agnostic. 

The  thinker  of  to-day  may  seem  to  say  that  the  Gods 
are  all  dead ;  but  he  means  only  that  earher  conceptions 
of  the  Supreme  Purpose  were  crude  and  largely  wrong. 
He  does  not  mean  that  there  is  no  Supreme  Purpose. 
In  the  wonders  of  the  world  discovered  by  his  micro- 
scope ;  in  the  fathomless  abysses  of  the  sky  which  he 
sweeps  with  his  great  reflectors;  in  the  story  written 
in  the  rocks  under  his  feet ;  in  the  depths  of  the  sea  and 
in  the  evolution  of  society  he  sees  an  unmistakable 
purpose. 

Whether  men  follow  the  admonitions  of  revealed 
truth  or  the  admonitions  of  attained  knowledge,  they 
really  seek  the  same  thing:  they  seek  to  interpret  the 
Supreme  Purpose — to  find  the  way. 

Just  now  this  quest  is  pronouncedly  sociological;  it 
has  not  abandoned  the  heavens  nor  the  microscope  nor 
the  laboratory,  but  in  the  processes  of  government  and 
society  it  finds  large  and  vital  problems  the  solution 
of  which  lies  entirely  within  the  responsibihties  of 
society  itself. 

At  the  present  time  men  seek  social  justice,  a  larger 
liberty,  protection  against  the  buffetings  of  circum- 
stance and  an  expanding  knowledge. 

As  a  people  we  are  apt  to  assume  that  social  unrest 
indicates  progress,  to  say  that  expressions  of  dis- 
satisfaction at  least  indicate  intellectual  and  moral 
vigor.  Social  unrest  doesn't  necessarily  mean  that. 
The  evil  in  the  world  is  so  real  that  I  don't  wonder 
men  long  found  no  explanation  of  it  except  in  the 
doctrine  of  a  personal  Devil.     Agitation  may  mean 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       345 

progress  and  it  may  mean  reaction;  it  may  mean 
patriotism  and  it  may  mean  ambition  or  envy  or  malice. 
The  overthrow  of  Rome  wasn't  the  last  effort  of  bar- 
barism. And  the  decay  of  Rome  which  made  her 
overthrow  easy  wasn't  the  end  of  national  decadence. 
I  do  not  believe  that  national  decadence  is  going  on 
in  any  considerable  people  to-day  and  I  know  it  is  not 
going  on  here.  But  the  very  character  of  our  citizen- 
ship makes  the  demagogue's  opportunity,  and  the  out- 
working of  a  demand  for  justice  and  a  larger  oppor- 
tunity gives  the  agitator  his  chance.  Not  every 
agitator  is  a  safe  leader  and  his  outpourings  do  not 
always  represent  real  grievances. 

What  the  world  constantly  seeks  is  that  most  difficult 
thing,  a  better  process.  The  historj^  of  the  world  is 
largely  a  record  of  abandoned  processes.  A  process  of 
government  has  been  good  one  daj^  and  bad  the  next, 
good  in  one  country  and  a  failure  elsewhere,  good  for 
one  people  and  ruinous  to  another,  good  in  one  age  and 
productive  of  injury  and  wrongs  in  a  later  time.  Still 
the  struggle  has  gone  on  and  for  the  average  man  the 
quest  has  always  been  the  same — what  process  will  give 
justice,  a  larger  opportunity,  certainty  and  expanding 
knowledge? 

Seventeen  Hundred  Seventy-Six  as  an  historic  date 
has  come  to  be  so  familiar  to  us  that  we  sometimes 
forget  its  significance.  Earlier  than  that  there  had  been 
no  real  democracy,  no  real  freedom  in  the  world. 
And  what  is  the  essence  of  the  process  then  adopted? 
Clearly  the  doctrine  that  all  power  emanates  from  the 
individual  and  that  every  process  in  government  and 
society  is  either  the  direct  exercise  of  that  power  or 
its  exercise  through  an  agent  to  whom  it  has  been 


346  Other  Addresses 

temporarily  entrusted.  How  has  it  worked?  Wonder- 
fully well. 

And  3^et  we  are  now  vexed  by  uncounted  orators 
who  are  telling  us  why  existing  processes  are  wrong  and 
how  we  can  get  a  fuller  social  justice.  The  machine 
does  creak.  That  frightens  some  people.  Justice  has 
advanced  mightily  within  a  century,  and  so  have  men's 
ideas  of  what  justice  is.  That  complicates  the  whole 
problem.  What  men  would  earlier  have  taken  thank- 
fully they  now  reject  scornfully.  The  established  order 
is  again  attacked  and  there  is  a  large  demand  that  even 
our  Federal  Constitution  be  dumped  on  the  scrap  heap 
of  history.  If  that  Constitution  long  fails  to  give 
justice,  certainty,  a  wider  opportunity  and  advancing 
knowledge,  then  onto  the  scrap  heap  it  should  go.  If 
it  is  clearly  not  sufficient  as  a  process,  then  it  is  likely 
to  be  abandoned  even  when  no  better  process  has  been 
evolved. 

The  discovery  of  really  universal  laws  is  a  slow  pro- 
cess. W^e  have  discovered  very  few.  We  have  had  to 
abandon  entirely  some  of  those  which  claimed  the 
authority  of  revelation  and  we  have  had  to  modify 
some  and  abandon  some  that  came  through  experience 
and  research.  Only  a  few  great  principles  are  estab- 
lished beyond  reasonable  question. 

In  society  and  in  government  we  are  still  groping, 
still  experimenting,  and  we  shall  continue  to  do  so  to 
the  end  of  time.  We  are  advancing  we  trust;  but 
leaders  loudly  disagree  and  the  new  road  which  one 
says  leads  to  social  justice,  another  affirms  leads  to 
reaction  and  ruin. 

The  fact  is  there  have  been  times  when  substantial 
justice  has  been  had  and  rapid  progress  made  under  a 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       347 

monarchical  form  of  government,  under  the  sway  of  the 
Divine  Right  doctrine.  There  have  been  times  when 
only  injustice  and  chaos  have  resulted  under  govern- 
ments democratic  in  form.  The  King  has  sometimes 
done  well.  Demos  has  sometimes  done  ill.  What  did 
the  King  do  when  he  did  well?  He  recognized  the 
paramount  rights  of  his  subjects.  He  did  not  treat 
all  alike,  because  their  powers,  duties  and  rights  were 
not  alike.  He  protected  the  weak,  but  gave  them  only 
what  they  deserved.  He  encouraged  the  strong  but 
restrained  them  from  taking  more  than  they  deserved. 
In  all  such  instances  the  King  really  exercised  sover- 
eignty. What  did  Demos  do  when  it  did  ill?  It  rated 
all  men  as  equal,  because  sovereign.  But  when  these 
sovereigns  neglected  to  exercise  sovereignty,  when 
men's  natural  inecjualities  asserted  themselves  the 
strong  oppressed  and  robbed  the  weak  until  the  weak 
revolted  and  through  force  of  numbers  took  frightful 
revenge. 

The  weakness  of  democracy  lies  in  its  first  and  most 
attractive  appeal.  It  asserts  men's  equality.  ]Men  are 
not  equal.  Because  of  his  sovereignty  man  has  certain 
inalienable  rights,  but  these  rights  are  limited  and 
beyond  them  man  is  entitled  only  to  what  he  wins  by 
his  energy,  his  capacity  and  his  honesty.  Some  men 
can  in  the  nature  of  things  win  little,  and  they  should 
be  protected.  Some  men  can  win  much,  and  they 
should  be  controlled.  What  social  idea  suggests  a  plan 
which  will  give  men  their  just  and  proper  rewards? 

What  Plan  gives  us  the  latest,  the  most  advanced, 
the  most  certain  index  to  what  we  call  the  Supreme 
Purpose?  What  plan,  starting  with  the  doctrine  that 
all  power  emanates  from  the  individual,  and  clinging 


348  Other  Addresses 

logically  to  the  principle  in  its  outworking  that  men 
are  not  created  equal  finally  achieves  the  largest 
measure  of  social  justice  along  with  distinct  success? 

I  answer:  The  Idea  and  the  Plan  of  Life  Insurance. 

The  New  York  Life  is  in  its  condition  to-day  a  com- 
plete illustration  of  the  weakness  and  of  the  immeasur- 
able strength  of  democracy.  I  am  referring  now  not  to 
the  methods  by  which  the  policy-holders  govern  the 
Company,  but  to  the  philosophy  of  the  business  itself. 

Here  at  bottom  is  true  democracy.  But  it  doesn't 
stand  on  any  foolish  doctrine  that  all  men  are  created 
equal.  It  stands  on  the  doctrine  that  all  men  are 
created  unequal,  so  unequal  that  some  are  not  eligible 
to  its  membership  on  any  terms,  some  are  eligible  on 
special  terms,  and  most  on  the  same  terms;  but  equality 
means  an  equal  return  for  whatever  the  indi\-idual  is 
and  does  and  nothing  more.  Any  other  doctrine  would 
be — and  has  been — in  life  insurance  as  deadly  as  is 
that  practice  to-day  which  makes  the  vote  of  a  hobo 
equal  to  the  vote  of  a  President  Taft  or  a  Woodrow 
Wilson. 

To  establish  the  folly  of  that  practice  needs  no 
argument.  The  vv'eakness  and  danger  of  this  doctrine 
of  equality  has  at  least  one  startling  and  almost  gro- 
tesque illustration  in  our  own  time.  The  Southern 
negro  is  protected  in  his  right  of  franchise  by  the  solemn 
covenants  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  but  he  doesn't 
vote  and  few  people  anywhere  feel  deeply  aggrieved  on 
that  account.  The  trouble  is  not  that  the  Southern 
negro  has  no  natural  rights,  but  that  this  doctrine  of 
equality,  this  franchise  guaranteed  by  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution gives  him  rights  to  which  he  is  not  entitled, 
rights   which  he   abused   when   he   had   them,   rights 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       349 

which  the  carpet-bagger  quickly  learned  how  to  use. 
The  negro — yes,  even  the  Southern  negro — should  have 
a  voice  in  governmental  affairs.  It  is  wrong  and 
dangerous  that  he  has  none;  only  less  wrong  and 
dangerous  than  it  would  be  for  him  again  to  have  full 
rights.  It  is  just  as  wrong  for  the  gun-man,  the  loafer, 
the  gambler,  the  white-slaver  to  have  a  power  in 
elections  equal  to  the  power  of  the  best  citizens. 

The  fact  is  we  run  society  and  the  government  at 
Washington  on  what  in  life  insurance  we  call  the  assess- 
ment plan.  This  plan  is  unscientific  from  its  very 
inception.  It  has  always  failed  and  it  always  must  fail. 
The  early  years  of  an  assessment  Company  are  very  like 
the  early  years  of  this  Republic.  Everything  is  lovely. 
Everything  was  lovely  at  first  with  us  under  the  Con- 
stitution. Expenses  were  low  because  nationality  had 
only  been  born  and  it  made  few  demands;  but  an  un- 
measured deficit  was  accumulating  just  as  it  does  in 
an  assessment  company.  That  deficit  took  its  fearful 
toll  in  1861  to  1865.  It  is  the  same  civic  deficit  which 
has  led  to  the  social  unrest  and  almost  social  revolution 
which  we  now  face. 

Suppose  the  New  York  Life  was  to-day  fully  liable 
under  all  the  contracts  it  ever  issued  on  which  default 
in  premiums  has  occurred,  what  would  be  its  con- 
dition? Isn't  that  relatively  our  condition  under  our 
form  of  government — or  rather  under  our  practice? 
Our  government  guaranties  never  decrease,  through  a 
mass  of  half-baked  legislation  they  constantly  increase ; 
but  the  civic  revenue  by  which  alone  these  guaranties 
can  be  made  good,  the  patriotic  attention  to  civic  duty 
called  for  by  our  theory  of  government,  constantly 
lapses.     Default   follows  that  lapse,   and  while  that 


350  Other  Addresses 

default  does  not  operate  as  quickly  as  it  does  on  a  bond, 
it  operates  just  as  certainly.  A  balance  is  finally 
struck.  In  business  this  balance  sometimes  represents 
full  payment,  but  usually  at  a  heavy  cost  to  some  one; 
frequently  it  represents  partial  repudiation,  which  of 
course  means  shame  as  well  as  loss.  In  government 
and  society  it  always  means  both  shame  and  loss; 
it  means  bitterness,  discontent,  civic  inefficiency  and 
that  general  sense  of  social  wrong  which  blossoms  in 
the  red  flag  of  anarchy. 

Constantly  increasing  ci^-ic  obligations  and  a  steadily 
decreasing  civic  revenue  explain  the  whole  political 
situation  to-day.  Civic  obligations  increase  inevitably. 
The  functions  of  government  naturally  and  properly 
widen.  Education,  transportation,  heating,  lighting, 
the  care  of  the  socially  inefficient — all  these  functions 
expand  constantly  and  every  citizen  is  their  bene- 
ficiary. We  go  on  the  theory  that  these  benefits  can 
be  denied  to  none.  In  educational  matters  they  are 
compulsory. 

But  the  civic  revenue,  the  patriotic  attention  of  each 
citizen  to  his  duties,  constantly  fails — sometimes  from 
sheer  neglect,  sometimes  from  selfishness,  sometimes 
from  crookedness.  The  sovereign  fails  to  act.  It  is 
well  to  face  the  truth.  We  are  following  a  practice  in 
government  which  followed  by  any  business  would  ruin 
it,  and  followed  much  farther  will  ruin  us.  That  sounds 
pessimistic,  but  isn't  it  true? 

Can  we  pay  our  civic  debts  by  optimism,  by  good 
crops,  by  hard  work,  by  business  success?  Can  we 
depend  on  fiat  citizenship  any  more  safely  than  we 
could  on  fiat  money?  Can  we  assume  that  all  will 
come  right  on  the  asset  side  of  the  account  with  no 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       351 

real  business  program  to  see  that  it  is  right?  I  am  not 
now  referring  to  the  material  assets  raised  by  the  crude 
and  unjust  systems  of  taxation  which  we  rely  on.  I 
don't  know  what  the  limit  of  our  power  to  raise  revenue 
may  be.  It  seems  almost  unlimited.  I  am  referring 
to  something  which  underlies  even  that,  which  is  the 
essence  of  the  idea  that  distinguishes  this  government 
from  all  governments  that  have  preceded  it.  Back  of 
the  material  and  financial  benefits  of  our  expanding 
system  lie  the  blessings  of  free  speech,  of  a  free  press, 
of  religious  liberty  and  of  free  men.  These  are  the  real 
things — these  in  their  widening  application  include  the 
inspiring  possibilities  of  our  future.  We  are  contracting 
almost  unlimited  liabilities  on  these  accounts,  assuming 
obligations  which  can  be  met  only  if  there  is  a  corre- 
sponding civic  income.  What  are  the  indications  as 
to  that  income?  Is  it  holding  up?  Is  it  expanding 
as  our  liabilities  pile  up?  He  would  be  a  bold  man 
who  answered  in  the  affirmative.  Are  we  doing  any- 
thing effective  to  increase  that  income?  Or  are  we 
piling  up  obligations  with  no  sure  source  of  revenue 
out  of  which  to  meet  them?  It  is  easy  to  contract 
obligations  in  government:  that  is  only  another  ex- 
pression for  conferring  benefits.  Men  feel  like  philan- 
thropists when  they  do  it.  Moreover  it  makes  votes. 
The  pork  barrel  is  always  popular. 

But  the  other  side  of  the  problem  is  not  so  simple. 
Most  of  3"ou  would  perhaps  be  shocked  by  a  suggestion 
that  you  ought  to  be  punished  every  time  you  neglect 
a  civic  duty.  That  sort  of  legislation  wouldn't  be 
popular;  it  wouldn't  make  votes.  Statesmen  shun  it. 
But  can  anyone  make  a  good  argument  against  it? 
If  we  spend  money  it  must  be  paid.    If  we  expand  civic 


352  Other  Addresses 

rights  we  should  do  so  only  if  we  know  that  our  drafts 
on  civic  obligation  will  be  honored.  If  they  are  not 
honored,  we,  having  already  contracted  the  obligation, 
certainly  face  dishonor. 

In  business  generally  the  wise  man  enters  into  no 
contract  unless  he  has  reasonable  assurance  that  he 
will  be  able  to  meet  that  contract's  demands.  The 
business  man  may  fail;  his  calculations  may  have  been 
erroneous,  his  assumptions  wrong,  but  he  has  a  plan 
and  he  struggles  desperately  to  carry  it  through.  In 
government  and  society  there  is  a  plan,  a  beautiful 
plan,  but  in  the  light  of  what  we  know  about  human 
nature  many  assumptions  that  are  fundamental  are 
wrong  and  many  calculations  erroneous  and  there  is 
no  business  program  for  its  execution. 

In  life  insurance  there  is  also  a  plan,  a  perfect  plan. 
There  is  no  error  in  the  calculation,  there  is  no  fault 
in  the  assumptions;  assets  and  obligations,  benefits 
and  duties,  power  and  promise  automatically  adjust 
themselves  and  a  man  gets  all  he  pays  for  but  no  more. 
At  the  same  time  every  member  of  that  republic  is 
certain  that  whatever  is  true  of  him  is  true  of  all  his 
associates. 

Would  there  be  anything  unwise  or  unreasonable  or 
illogical  in  a  program  which  treated  government  and 
its  obligations  in  the  same  way?  Would  it  be  in  any 
respect  unsound,  for  example,  if,  w^hen  we  give  men  the 
benefit  of  free  schools,  we  at  the  same  time  laid  specific 
civic — not  merely  financial — obligations  upon  them 
and  to  those  obligations  attached  suitable  penalties? 
That  uiSLj  seem  a  bit  startling,  but  is  it  at  all  unreason- 
able?   Isn't  it  logical  and  necessary? 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Pur-pose       353 

Let  us  brush  aside  the  sort  of  superstition  which 
assumes  that  a  free  government  means  unhmited 
giving;  that  a  free  government  means  only  individual 
freedom  to  act  or  not  to  act  as  one  sees  fit. 

Free  government  means  in  theory  an  assumption  of 
personal  responsibilities  of  the  highest  order,  larger 
obligations  than  attach  to  the  citizen  under  any  other 
form  of  government.  If  the  sovereign  neglects  or  re- 
fuses to  act,  why  not  coerce  that  particular  sovereign? 
Why  not  enforce  his  responsibilities?  ^\Tiy  not  enforce 
them  by  statute?  Are  we  not  now  face  to  face  with 
conditions  which  indicate  that  there  is  really  no  other 
recourse  and  that  there  really  never  was  any  other  safe 
and  sound  program? 

''But"  you  ask,  "how  shall  we  do  this?"  I  answer 
just  as  we  do  it  in  life  insurance.  If  a  man  lapses  in 
life  insurance  his  rights  and  benefits  are  reduced  ac- 
cordingly. We  take  nothing  away  from  him;  we  simply 
refuse  to  give  him  what  he  hasn't  paid  for.  We  can't 
compel  a  man  to  pay  his  premium,  but  we  can  and  do 
protect  ourselves  on  the  other  side  of  the  account. 

Why  should  not  a  civic  as  well  as  a  financial  account 
be  kept  by  the  State  with  every  citizen?  A  regular 
debit  and  credit?  The  credits  the  State  must  give; 
the  debits  the  State  should  enforce. 

If  the  State  has  charged  against  the  citizen  the  duty 
of  voting,  why  shouldn't  that  be  checked  up  and  en- 
forced? If  the  citizen  fails  to  do  his  duty  and  can't 
justify  his  failure,  why  shouldn't  he  be  fined?  And  if 
he  fails  again,  why  shouldn't  he  be  jailed?  And  if  he 
fails  a  third  time,  why  shouldn't  he  be  classed  civically 
with  other  incompetents — the  insane,  the  criminal, 
the  feeble-minded?    By  that  process  we  should  blow 


354  Other  Addresses 

away  a  lot  of  fog,  we  should  cease  to  depend  on  him 
for  the  civic  income  which  we  never  get. 

If  a  citizen  sells  his  vote,  we  are  supposed  to  have  a 
way  to  deal  with  him  now  though  we  seldom  use  it 
effectively;  but  if  a  man  sells  his  vote  isn't  he  in  reality 
a  traitor  and  should  he  receive  any  less  drastic  punish- 
ment than  we  deal  out  to  traitors? 

The  debit  side  presents  the  serious  problems  when  we 
face  the  facts;  the  credit  side  is  where  most  of  our 
statesmen  are  busy.  It's  easy  to  give  money  and  pri- 
vilege away.  But  nothing  is  more  certain  than  this: 
we  must  face  the  facts.  We  must  do  in  government 
what  we  do  in  life  insurance.  Can  anyone  overstate 
the  benefits  to  all  if  this  government  were  as  solvent 
civically  as  the  New  York  Life  is  financially?  If  its 
civic  debits  were  certainly  equal  to  the  civic  benefits 
it  has  pledged? 

Parties  may  clamor  about  social  injustice,  about 
tariffs  and  State  Rights,  about  trusts  and  big  business; 
but  these  questions  would  not  exist,  or  would  be  re- 
latively simple  if  the  citizen  was  not  ci\dcally  in  default. 
Their  solution  lies  not  in  loud  promises  and  protesta- 
tions, but  in  the  simple  and  effective  and  equitable 
processes  by  which  this  Company  has  come  to  be  not 
merely  a  great  storehouse  of  social  power,  but  a  great 
exemplar  of  how  to  get  and  to  give  social  justice. 

The  Supreme  Purpose  whatever  else  it  may  involve, 
must  involve  social  justice.  A  demand  for  social 
justice  lies  back  of  all  the  political  turmoil  of  to-day. 
But  no  program  advanced  by  any  political  party  does 
anything  more  than  talk  about  it,  talk  around  it.  The 
Socialists  go  beyond  it;  all  the  others  go  astray.  Can 
you  imagine  a  political  leader  really  facing  the  music, 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       355 

really  telling  the  people  the  truth?  Can  you  see  a 
party  making  the  citizens'  civic  obligations  a  part  of 
its  platform  and  solemnly  declaring  for  a  jail  sentence 
for  men  who  persistently  neglect  their  civic  duties? 

Crying  out  against  the  Bosses  is  all  right.  But  how 
busy  with  civic  duties  have  you  seen  most  of  those  who 
cry  loudest?  Has  the  Boss  done  anything  but  appro- 
priate in  a  perfectly  natural  way  the  property  of  the 
good  citizen  who  has  been  so  busy  that  he  left  his  civic 
heritage  to  grow  up  to  weeds? 

Indeed  I  am  not  sure  which  element  of  society'  in  the 
long  run  is  more  to  be  condemned:  the  Bosses  who 
merely  seize  their  opportunities  or  the  Business  Men 
who  let  things  go  to  the  dogs  for  years  and  then  rise  up 
in  rage  and  upset  for  the  moment  the  Bosses'  program. 
Having  upset  the  Bosses,  the  Good  Citizen  struts 
around  for  a  time  looking  virtuous,  passes  a  lot  of  laws 
which  further  extend  civic  privileges,  and  then  back 
he  goes  again  to  the  old  condition.  He  lapses,  but  his 
claim  on  general  society  does  not  correspondingly  de- 
crease and  the  deficit  which  follows  ultimately  results 
in  another  civic  outburst.  The  Bosses  never  would 
have  a  chance  if  the  good  people  would  just  be  honest 
with  their  own  form  of  government.  Tammany  Hall 
has  never  had  at  any  one  time  a  membership  of  over 
15,000,  but  that  was  enough  because  there  was  no  real 
opposition. 

Government  isn't  a  joke;  society  isn't  a  joke.  All 
values,  all  certainty,  all  business,  all  justice,  all  pro- 
gress, sooner  or  later  question  both,  and  the  answer 
received  fixes  values  and  measures  progress.  This 
sovereign  citizen  of  ours  unquestionably  asserts  his 
sovereignty  in  business,  but  repudiates  his  sovereignty 


356  Other  Addresses 

in  most  of  the  things  which  ultimately  control  business. 
In  business  he  insists  on  the  rule  of  law  and  he  himself 
makes  and  enforces  that  law.  The  man  who  dis- 
regards the  laws  of  business  may  be  haled  into  an 
ordinary  court  and  punished  or  he  may  be  convicted 
and  punished  before  any  statute  law  becomes  operative. 
Most  business  failures  are  the  result  of  lawlessness 
which  the  written  statute  does  not  reach. 

In  civic  affairs  our  sovereign  exhibits  no  such  effi- 
ciency. He  is  not  a  lawmaker;  he  is  a  lawbreaker. 
Acting  on  a  plan  of  government  which  is  the  product 
of  thousands  of  years  of  struggle,  we  assert  a  sovereignty 
which  we  in  a  large  measure  neglect,  and  have  thereby 
become  a  nation  of  lawbreakers.  The  penalties  of .  that 
lawlessness  are  ultimately  visited  not  alone  upon  the 
guilty  but  upon  the  whole  body  of  society.  Then  the 
demagogue  gets  busy.  Then  the  Constitution  is  as- 
sailed. Then  every  political  nostrum  known  in  the 
laboratory  of  quackery  is  brought  out  and  our  ears 
are  furiously  assaulted.  One  man  shrieks  about  the 
high  cost  of  living;  another  shrieks  about  the  Bosses; 
another  shrieks  about  the  Tariff;  all  suggest  a  lot  of 
new  things  which  will  give  us  something  more.  But 
not  a  party  or  a  man  gets  down  to  real  business;  not 
a  party  or  a  man  touches  the  real  trouble — which  is 
that  civically  we  are  not  business  men.  We  are  flying 
kites,  depending  on  fiat  civic  virtue.  We  are  pursuing 
a  program  which  would  wreck  any  business  enterprise, 
and  we  ought  not  to  expect  anj-  real  relief  until  we  rise 
to  the  level  of  our  civic  professions  and  pay  our  ci\ic 
debts. 

The  road  that  leads  to  the  land  of  the  Supreme 
Purpose  runs  through  the  dominions  of  justice,  where 


Life  Insurance  and  the  Supreme  Purpose       357 

certainty  lives,  where  there  is  an  expanding  opportunity 
and  a  larger  knowledge.  On  that  road  no  idea  has 
traveled  so  fast  or  so  far  as  life  insurance.  In  its  train 
are  justice,  liberty,  certainty  and  a  knowledge  which 
illumines  the  mind  and  unfetters  the  soul. 

I  suppose  if  any  of  us  in  some  future  state  of  exis- 
tence comes  to  know  the  riddle  of  the  universe  and  the 
processes  by  w^hich  man  solved  it,  we  shall  see  as  we 
cannot  see  now  the  great  points  in  history,  we  shall 
note  the  birth  of  ideas  that  w^ere  really  decisive  and 
advanced  the  consummation  of  the  Supreme  Purpose. 

I  can  imagine  a  meeting  of  the  S200,000  Club  in  that 
state  of  existence,  at  which  thankfulness  will  be  our 
mastering  sentiment — thankfulness  for  a  shining  part  in 
the  w^ork,  and  with  it  will  be  mingled  a  feehng  of  pride 
because  of  our  consciousness  that  when  we  met  an 
opportunity  which  seemed  to  illuminate  the  Supreme 
Purpose  we  pursued  it  mightily;  we  worked  and  never 
dawdled. 


THE  TAXATION  OF  ORGANIZED 
BENEFICENCE 


AN  ADDRESS 

TO  THE  EXECUTIVE  OFFICERS,  STAFF  AND  GUESTS  OF  THE  UNION 

CENTRAL  LIFE.  AT  THE  OPENING  OF  ITS  HOME  OFFICE. 

NOVEMBER  7.  1913,  CINCINNATI,  OHIO 


TANDING  within  the  precincts  of  this  noble 
structure,  surrounded  not  only  by  the  men 
who  guide  the  destinies  of  this  great  in- 
stitution but  also  by  the  traditions  which 
always  cluster  about  a  really  great  human 
enterprise,  I  realize  that  congratulations  from  me,  or 
from  any  one,  to  be  adequate  must  represent  something 
more  than  merely  happily  chosen  words. 

The  facts  speak  for  themselves.  Achievement  stands 
all  about  us.  Dreams  have  been  made  realities.  Ideals 
have  been  nobly  pursued  and  splendidly  attained. 
Nothing  that  any  of  us  says  to-day  can  adequately 
describe  the  high  purpose,  the  wise  methods,  the  patient 
labors,  and  the  moral  steadfastness  by  which  a  hfe  in- 
surance organization  has  been  here  so  administered 
that  a  great  life  insurance  company  has  been  built  up. 
That  such  an  institution  exists  is  proof  that  a  high 
purpose  has  ruled  it,  is  proof  that  wise  methods  have 
been  followed  by  it,  and  that  patient  labor  has  marked 
its  whole  existence;  the  Company  itself  is  the  rich 
reward  of  a  moral  steadfastness  without  which  such 
success  may  not  be  achieved.    Words,  therefore,  count 

358 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         359 

for  little,  and  for  nothing  unless  they  are  sympathet- 
ically uttered. 

When  I  offer,  in  the  name  of  the  Company  I  have 
the  honor  to  serve,  sincere  congratulations  upon  your 
entrance  into  this  beautiful  Home,  I  offer  not  merely 
words,  but  an  appreciation  born  of  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  similar  purposes,  methods  and  labors,  and 
a  profound  sympathy  and  daily  experience  with  a  like 
moral  steadfastness. 

I  rejoice  with  you  in  your  success.  I  know  what  suc- 
cess costs.  I  venerate  the  names  of  those  who  first 
set  your  feet  in  the  right  way  and  estabhshed  your 
goings.  My  veneration  is  born  of  the  pride  I  feel  in  the 
great  names  which  adorn  the  history  of  my  own 
institution.  I  greet  most  sympathetically  those  who 
to-day  manage  your  affairs.  That  sympathy  is  born 
of  experience  in  facing  kindred  problems,  of  efforts  to 
uphold  the  best  traditions  of  a  great  business,  of  a 
determination  not  to  neglect  any  new  processes  or  new 
standard  which  our  larger  experience  demands  that 
we  should  adopt. 

The  Union  Central,  like  all  life  companies  of  similar 
age,  has  passed  the  experimental  stages  and  has  a 
history  and  an  experience  of  its  own.  It  has  withstood 
those  economic  crises  which,  especially  in  this  country, 
periodically  depress  business  and  disturb  the  value  of 
securities.  It  has  gained  wisdom  from  the  failures  of 
other  organizations  less  soundly  organized.  It  has 
learned  how  circumspect  a  corporation  and  the  officers 
of  a  corporation  must  be  in  order  not  to  arouse  public 
prejudice.  It  has  seen  how  necessary  it  is  to  guard 
against  the  wiles  of  those  who  thrive  upon  denuncia- 
tion.    On  the  affirmative  side,  it  has  learned  the  in- 


360  Other  Addresses 

estimable  value  of  integrity  and  courgage.  It  has  seen 
that  those  who  build  upon  sure  foundations  need  not 
fear  the  storm;  that  public  opinion  in  the  long  run  will 
follow  the  rules  of  common  sense  and  fair-play. 

Life  insurance  has  now  come  to  years  of  manhood, 
to  years  of  strength,  and,  except  in  New  York  State, 
to  a  period  of  unlimited  opportunity.  In  all  the 
struggles  that  have  preceded  that  condition,  the  Union 
Central  has  been  a  factor.  In  the  organized  forces 
which  promise  most  for  the  future  of  general  society, 
this  Company  has  a  definite  place,  and,  in  the  great 
territory  where  it  is  located,  the  leading  place. 

If  there  were  any  really  unchangeable  and  irrevo- 
cable canons  of  society  and  government,  I  should  be 
disposed  to  complete  my  congratulations  by  sug- 
gesting that  the  Union  Central's  problems  are  all 
solved  and  its  troubles  are  all  over.  But  unfortunately 
— or  perhaps  I  should  say  fortunately — your  problems 
are  not  all  solved  and  your  troubles  are  not  all  over. 
It  is  true  that  your  organization  rests  solidly  on  ac- 
cepted tables  of  mortality  and  conservative  assump- 
tions as  to  rates  of  interest ;  it  is  true  that  your  invest- 
ments are  soundly  made;  it  is  true  that  you  are  organ- 
izing society  against  its  own  weakness;  that  you  are 
daily  assembling  unrelated  and  otherwise  hostile  money 
and  impressing  it  with  a  social  efficiency  which  the 
world  as  yet  only  faintly  comprehends.  It  is  true  that 
your  work  is  entirely  creative,  that  it  is  in  sj^mpathy 
with  every  force  that  builds  up  and  is  hostile  to  every 
factor  that  disintegrates  and  destroys.  )»\Tien  I  say 
that  of  all  the  organized  factors  of  society  only  a  few 
can  truthfully  claim  to  possess  these  qualities,  I  assert 
only  what  every  well-informed  man  knows  to  be  a 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         361 

fact;  and  yet  I  cannot  congratulate  you  on  that  ac- 
count over  immunity  from  unjust  attacks  in  the  future. 
Indeed,  so  preverse  are  some  of  the  forces  of  a  demo- 
cratic society  that  your  virtues  and  your  usefulness  and 
your  success  are  almost  certain  to  be  the  source  of 
some  of  your  gravest  problems,  the  cause  of  some  of 
your  most  serious  troubles. 

One  of  the  many  problems  that  face  j^ou  and  me  and 
all  men  charged  with  any  considerable  responsibilit}^  in 
this  great  field  of  work  is  taxation. 

If  I  proceed  now  to  discuss  problems  of  taxation 
merely,  I  shall  not  have  discussed  the  real  problem 
which  I  have  in  mind,  and  yet  the  problem  I  have  in 
mind  finds  its  most  concrete  expression  in  terms  of 
taxation.    The  real  problem  goes  deeper.    It  is  this: 

How  shall  we  make  the  people  understand  that  a  life 
insurance  company  is  a  pure  democracy;  that  it  is  the 
most  successful  expression  of  democratic  principles 
actually  at  work;  that  in  it  there  is  the  justice  which 
democracy  aims  to  accomplish  and  otherwise  largely 
fails  to  achieve;  that  it  is  a  brother  to  all  those  who, 
from  the  beginning  of  time,  have  sought  to  assert  the 
divinity  that  dwells  in  man,  who  have  sought  some 
process  by  which  the  sovereignty  of  the  individual 
could  be  established  and  at  the  same  time  the  im- 
measurable strength  of  men  working  together  could  be 
realized? 

That  this  is  what  life  insurance  really  means,  society 
at  large  does  not  begin  to  comprehend.  Indignant 
over  their  exploitation  by  the  strong  and  the  rich,  men 
are  disposed  to  classify  the  successful  life  insurance 
company  along  with  the  great  trust,  and  to  view  it 
with  the  suspicion  and  fear  with  which  they  view — and 


362  Other  Addresses 

view  not  altogether  unjustly — accumulated  wealth  and 
great  business  success.  I  do  not  claim  that  life  insur- 
ance is  entirely  without  fault.  It  has  made  some 
serious  mistakes  which  have  given  some  color  of  justifi- 
cation to  such  public  opinion.  But  the  real  causes 
which  have  led  to  the  misconceptions  which  exist  are 
to  be  found  in  the  imperfections  of  human  nature 
and  in  some  of  those  weaknesses  which  always  have 
and  always  will  be  inherent  in  a  democratic  society. 

One  great  weakness  of  a  democratic  society  is  that 
its  beneficent  forces  are  unorganized.  Selfishness  is 
organized,  politics  is  organized,  business  is  organized, 
even  crime  is  organized.  But  the  people,  through  lack 
of  organization,  frequently  are  unable  to  know  when 
and  how  and  where  they  have  really  achieved  a  triumph. 
The  politician  easily  fools  them;  business  not  infre- 
quently fools  them.  For  this  reason  they  sometimes 
find  that  the  fruits  of  an  apparent  victory  are  at  the 
last  merely  Apples  of  Sodom.  On  the  other  hand,  and 
for  the  same  reason,  they  sometimes  fail  to  recognize 
a  really  democratic  movement,  a  really  democratic 
achievement. 

That  life  insurance  is  organized  beneficence,  that  it 
is  democratic,  that  its  money  is  the  money  of  the 
people,  that  its  extent  is  so  great  as  to  make  any  exist- 
ing private  fortune  a  matter  of  relative  unimportance, 
that  its  billions  of  accumulations  are  more  potent  than 
any  other  money  assembled  for  any  purpose  because 
of  the  social  efficiency  with  which  they  are  impressed, — 
in  short,  that  it  answers  to  a  large  degree  the  longings 
of  the  individual  for  a  definite  place  in  the  wealth  of 
the  world,  and  for  definite  power  against  the  organized 
selfishness  of  the  world, — all  these  seem  to  be  truths 


i 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         363 

that  the  people  comprehend  with  great  difficulty. 
Indeed,  comprehension  comes  so  slowly  that  the  people 
themselves,  through  their  accredited  representatives, 
unwittingly  harass  and  handicap  and  burden  what  are 
really  their  own  best  and  dearest  achievements. 

I  can  at  this  time  touch  only  upon  one  or  two  of  the 
forms  which  this  lack  of  understanding  takes  with  re- 
gard to  life  insurance.    One  form  is  taxation. 

We  have,  as  a  nation,  recently  been  re-examining  the 
bases  and  the  principles  of  taxation  in  the  matter  of 
imported  goods  and  of  incomes.  Congress  has  pro- 
claimed its  intention  to  strike  the  shackles  from  trade 
and  industry  and  to  lift  the  burden  of  the  high  cost  of 
living  from  the  consumer,  or  at  least  from  the  poor. 
There  are  shackles  which  bind  life  insurance  and  there 
is  a  high  cost  to  the  consumer  in  this  field  which  is  the 
direct  product  of  unwise  legislation,  which  in  turn  is 
a  direct  product  of  misconception  by  the  insured  them- 
selves. Whatever  life  insurance  costs  beyond  what  it 
should  is  chiefly  chargeable  now  to  unwise  legislation. 

I  shall  not  stop  to  review  what  may  be  called  the 
shackles  pure  and  simple  which  still  exist  in  hfe  insur- 
ance regulation.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  such  shackles  do 
not  exist  outside  of  the  States  of  New  York  and  Texas, 
and  as  originally  forged  they  have  been  mostly  broken. 
In  New  York  they  remain  to-day  in  only  two  par- 
ticulars: Limitation  on  the  volume  of  business  which 
a  company  may  legally  produce  annually;  and  limita- 
tion on  a  company's  margins  of  safety. 

But  as  re-examination  of  processes  of  taxation  is  in 
order  let  us  review  concretely  some  facts  with  regard 
to  the  processes  by  which  life  insurance  is  now  taxed: 
The  legal  reserve  life  insurance  companies  of  the  United 


364  Other  Addresses 

States  paid  in  1912,  in  addition  to  taxes  on  real  estate, 
nearly  $13,000,000  on  a  total  premium  income  of  over 
8666,000,000.  That  is  to  say,  for  every  $1,000  of 
capital  which  the  insured  paid  in  1912  for  the  protec- 
tion of  their  families  through  life  insurance,  the  state 
took,  in  one  form  or  another,  about  $20.  This  is  a 
heavier  tax  than  the  property  tax  in  New  York, 
Chicago,  Philadelphia,  St.  Louis,  Boston  or  San  Fran- 
cisco. Every  dollar's  worth  of  property  upon  the 
security  of  which  the  companies  had  invested  their 
funds  paid  taxes  where  it  was  situated;  but,  in  addition 
to  that,  for  the  mere  privilege  of  existing  and  doing 
business,  the  States  first  and  last  took  this  fearful  toll. 

This  is  not  only  taxation  of  capital  but  excessive 
taxation  from  any  point  of  \'iew.  It  can  perhaps  be 
made  more  impressive  if,  for  purposes  of  illustration,  we 
apply  the  burden  to  some  other  phases  of  the  business. 

The  ultimate  purpose  of  life  insurance,  of  course,  is 
protection,  and  that  finds  expression  in  the  money  that 
is  finally  paid  to  the  insured  or  to  their  beneficiaries. 

If  now  we  assume  that  the  policy-holder  was  taxed 
upon  what  he  received  rather  than  upon  what  he  paid, 
we  find  that  for  every  $1,000  paid  to  policy-holders  in 
1912  the  state  exacted  in  taxes  almost  $29. 

x\gain,  if  we  assume  that  the  chief  benefit  of  life  in- 
surance is  the  amount  paid  in  death  claims,  then  we 
find  that  for  every  $1,000  so  paid  the  state  exacted 
death  duties  to  the  amount  of  over  $63. 

If  it  be  said  that  expenses  of  life  insurance  are  too 
high,  managements  may  very  well  retort  that  the  item 
of  state  taxes  in  every  $1,000  expenses  amounts  to  $72, 
and  unlike  ordinary  expenses  is  a  factor  entirely  beyond 
their  control. 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         365 

If  people  complain  that  dividends  are  too  small, 
that  condition  is  in  part  at  least  explained  by  taxes, 
because  for  every  $1,000  paid  in  di^^dends  in  1912  the 
companies  were  obhged  to  pay  S140  in  taxes;  in  other 
words,  dividends  on  the  average  would  have  been  14% 
higher  but  for  the  moneys  taken  by  the  State  for  the 
privilege  of  doing  business. 

The  latest  development  in  our  various  forms  of 
taxation  in  the  country  at  large  is  the  Income  Tax. 
This  tax  reaches  life  insurance,  as  it  did  in  the  cor- 
poration tax  which  it  supersedes,  by  levying  \%  upon 
net  income.  If  the  Company  which  I  have  the  honor 
to  serve  had  paid  to  the  Federal  Government  in  1912 
as  a  tax  on  its  net  income  what  it  paid  to  the  States, 
the  rate  of  taxation  on  that  income  would  have  been 
four  and  four-tenths  per  cent.  This  rate  approximates 
the  rate  le\^ed  by  the  Income  Tax  on  so  much  of 
private  incomes  as  exceeds  8250,000  and  does  not 
exceed  $500,000;  in  other  words,  it  equals  the  rate 
applied  by  the  existing  law  to  those  whom  some 
people  call  "the  criminal  rich". 

The  indictment  against  such  taxation  is  not  com- 
plete when  I  recite  merely  the  size  of  the  burden. 
Another  clause  of  the  indictment  must  tell  how  the 
States  destroy  equity  as  between  policy-holders. 
Neither  in  the  rate,  in  the  amounts  paid,  nor  in  the 
principle  underlying  the  system  of  taxation,  do  the 
States  agree. 

Twenty-seven  States  levy  a  tax  upon  gross  premiums 
without  deductions. 

In  one  State  the  rate  is  six-tenths  of  1  % ; 

In  two  States  it  is  1  % ; 

In  one  State  it  is  1.44%; 

25 


366  Other  Addresses 

In  one  it  is  1.75%; 

In  two  it  is  l}/i%; 

In  eleven  it  is  2%; 

In  one  it  is  23^%  on  the  first  S5,000  and  2%  on  the 
excess ; 

In  one  it  is  234%; 

In  six  it  is  23^%; 

And  in  one  it  is  3%. 

Nineteen  States  and  the  District  of  Columbia  levy  a 
tax  upon  premiums  after  certain  deductions: 

In  four  States  and  in  the  District  of  Columbia  the 
basis  of  the  tax  is  premiums  less  dividends; 

In  nine  States  it  is  premiums  less  annual  di\'idends; 

In  one  State  it  is  premiums  less  death  losses; 

In  one  State  it  is  premiums  less  death  losses  not  to 
exceed  25%  of  the  premiums; 

In  two  States  it  is  premiums  less  policy  claims; 

In  one  State  it  is  premiums  less  death  losses,  endow- 
ments and  commissions; 

In  one  State  it  is  premiums  less  re-insurance  pre- 
miums paid  to  domestic  companies. 

In  two  States  only  are  premiums  not  taxed — Nevada 
and  Massachusetts;  but  ^Massachusetts  levies  a  tax 
upon  the  reserves  of  Massachusetts  policy-holders, 
which  is  the  most  indefensible  of  all  forms  of  hfe  in- 
surance taxation. 

Among  the  lesser  taxes  imposed  are  some  of  the 
following  in  every  State:  state  license  tax,  state  fees, 
state  and  county  license  fees,  city  and  county  taxes, 
personal  property  tax. 

Here  are  nineteen  different  rates  of  taxation,  even  if 
licenses  and  fees  were  the  same  in  every  State — which 
they  are  not.    And  yet  the  United  States  are  supposed 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         367 

to  be  a  nation  in  which  the  citizens  of  each  State  are 
"entitled  to  all  pri\'ileges  and  immunities  of  citizens 
of  the  several  States",  where  commercial  intercourse 
between  the  citizens  of  the  different  states  is  free  and 
untrammelled. 

If  any  one  of  these  rates  of  taxation  is  right,  then 
eighteen  of  them  are  wrong. 

The  absurdity  and  injustice  of  the  present  situation 
will  be  illustrated  if  we  assume  that  Congress  were 
legislating  upon  the  subject  and  that  nineteen  different 
rates  of  taxation  were  presented  by  representatives  of 
nineteen  different  States,  and,  as  the  sponsors  of  each 
plan  insisted  upon  their  own,  Congress  should  enact 
them  all! 

All  this,  notwithstanding  the  frequently  repeated 
statute  which  forbids  any  company  to  "make  or  permit 
any  discrimination  between  indi\dduals  of  the  same 
class  or  of  equal  expectation  of  life,  in  the  amount  or 
payment  or  return  of  premiums  or  rates  charged  for 
policies  of  insurance,  or  in  the  dividends  or  other 
benefits  payable  thereon,  or  in  any  of  the  terms  and 
conditions  of  the  policy".  The  first  to  violate  these 
statutes  are  the  States  that  have  passed  them.  The 
companies  could  hardly  have  any  object  in  violating 
them,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  company  ever  volun- 
tarily did.  It  would  be  difficult,  however,  to  conceive 
of  a  greater  travesty  on  justice  in  the  matter  of  taxation 
than  a  program  by  which  the  States  in  one  statute 
prohibit  discriminations  and  in  another  enforce  a 
program  which  compels  discriminations. 

We  are,  in  a  word,  faced  by  this  anomalous  condition : 
Life  insurance,  using  words  in  their  ordinary  signifi- 
cance, is  not  an  investment  at  all.     The  money  that 


3G8  Other  Addresses 

pro\'ides  it  represents,  substantially  in  its  entirety, 
unselfish  sacrifice;  and  yet,  no  capital  going  into  any 
ordinary  business  enterprise  is  anywhere  in  this  country 
taxed  as  heavily  as  life  insurance  premiums  are  taxed. 

Taxation  is  one  of  the  oldest  problems  of  government. 
Indeed  it  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  government.  The 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  representatives  of  the 
people  to  get  money  for  governmental  purposes  in  the 
easiest,  rather  than  in  the  right,  way  is  in  part  at  least 
a  product  of  their  resentment  against  the  encroachment 
of  organized  wealth,  against  the  inhumanity  of  or- 
ganized ability.  Responsible  life  insurance  companies 
have  money;  they  must  have  it.  But  the  people  as  a 
whole  do  not  understand  that  necessity,  they  do  not 
appreciate  its  significance,  and  they  do  not  realize  that 
that  rnonej'  is  their  money,  that  it  is  beneficent  and 
not  malevolent  in  character,  that  it  is  really  the  fine 
product  of  an  ideal  democracy.  It  is  even  difficult 
for  them  to  understand  that  the  project  itself  should  be 
encouraged;  but  that  much  they  do  faintly  admit. 
Broadl}^  speaking,  the  man  in  the  street  will  generally 
say  that  life  insurance  is  a  good  thing.  Concretely 
speaking,  when  he  comes  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that 
it  has  great  accumulations  of  money,  he  acts  as  though 
he  thought  it  were  a  bad  thing. 

And  yet,  I  thoroughly  beheve  that  we  are  making 
progress.  There  are  two  principal  reasons  why  I  think 
so;  the  first  is  that  the  day  of  strike  legislation  is  gone 
and  gone  forever.  This  dates  from  the  moral  upheaval 
which  perhaps  found  its  most  definite  form  in  the  in- 
surance investigation  in  the  State  of  New  York  in 
1905-6.  It  is  easy  to  be  wise  after  the  event,  easy  now 
to  condemn  the  men  who,  in  most  instances  at  least, 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         369 

dickered  with  the  blackmailing  legislator  from  the  best 
of  motives  and  from  a  desire  to  protect  the  interests 
of  their  poUcy-holders ;  but  that  condition  has  passed, 
passed  not  only  for  life  insurance,  but,  as  I  see  it,  for 
all  corporations.  The  second  reason  is  that  when  the 
Income  Tax  was  under  discussion  in  Congress,  genuine 
progress  was  made.  The  case  was  presented  as  it 
probably  was  never  presented  before  to  any  legislative 
body  in  this  country.  The  result  is  that  the  tax  exacted 
from  life  insurance  companies  under  the  Corporation 
Tax  law  will  be  materially  reduced  under  the  existing 
Income  Tax  law.  That  is  progress;  and  no  incon- 
siderable progress  has  been  made  by  the  several  States 
as  well. 

Twelve  States,  within  seven  years,  have  reduced  tax- 
ation on  life  insurance  by  percentages  varying  from  one- 
tenth  of  one  per  cent,  in  Colorado,  to  one  per  cent,  in 
Rhode  Island.  In  the  same  period  thirteen  States  have 
increased  taxation.  While,  therefore,  the  States,  as  a 
whole,  appear  not  to  have  made  progress,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  have,  because  prior  to  seven  years  ago  no 
State  ever  made  any  reduction  under  any  circumstances. 
That  within  seven  years  twelve  States  should  have  made 
reductions  is  significant,  and  is  rendered  more  signifi- 
cant by  the  recent  action  of  the  Federal  Congress. 

But  the  misunderstanding  still  exists.  That  Con- 
gressmen and  Senators  fail  to  understand  the  part  that 
life  insurance  plays  in  the  economy  of  the  state  is 
shown  in  the  text  of  the  Income  Tax  law  as  it  now 
stands,  and  was  strikingly  shown  by  the  measure  in 
its  first  draft.  It  is  hardly  worth  while  now  to  discuss 
the  provisions  of  the  bill  as  originally  presented;  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  into  that  first  draft  some  enemy  of 


370  Other  Addresses 

responsible  life  insurance  had  injected  an  unusual 
amount  of  venom.  Who  that  enemy  was  I  do  not  know, 
although  he  probably  was  not  a  member  of  either 
House.  But  even  now  the  bill  clearly  shows  this  lack 
of  understanding,  this  fear  of  accumulated  money, 
this  disposition  to  put  a  penalty  upon  success. 

The  bill,  for  example,  exempts  all  fraternal,  bene- 
ficial and  religious  orders.  Why?  Ostensibly  because 
they  are  mutual.  But  is  that  the  real  reason?  They 
are  no  more  mutual  than  certain  well-known  life  com- 
panies, and  broadly  speaking  no  more  mutual  than  the 
so-called  stock  companies.  But  they  accumulate  little 
money,  they  present  the  plea  of  poverty ;  the  successful 
companies  accumulate  money  and  do  not  present  the 
plea  of  poverty.  It  is  true  that  these  orders  are  un- 
scientifically founded,  that  they  are  to  a  large  degree 
irresponsible,  that  their  contracts  cannot  be  depended 
on,  that  their  record  through  a  period  of  time  is  one 
of  failure  and  financial  default,  social  inefficiency  and 
general  incompetence;  but  they  have  the  seeming 
virtue  of  poverty.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  true  that 
the  responsible  life  companies  are  dependable,  that 
their  contracts  are  as  certain  as  anything  in  human 
society,  that  what  they  agree  to  do  they  do,  and  the 
extent  of  what  they  beneficently  do  is  almost  beyond 
calculation;  but  in  doing  it  and  in  order  that  they  may 
do  it,  they  commit  the  offence — or  what  is  seemingly 
an  offence— of  having  large  accumulations  of  money. 
Moreover  they  never  make  the  plea  of  poverty.  So 
the  inefficient  and  the  irresponsible  go  untaxed;  the 
efficient  and  the  responsible  are  taxed.  The  feeble 
attempt  at  democracy  is  encouraged;  the  effective 
achievement  of  real  democracy  is  discouraged. 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         371 

And  yet  I  insist  that  we  have  progressed.  During  the 
recent  discussion  of  the  Income  Tax  law  Congress  really 
responded  to  the  plea  of  the  companies.  Most  of  us 
presented  arguments;  which  arguments  went  home  it 
is  not  easy  to  say.  That  some  of  them  went  home  is 
certain.  It  may  not  be  out  of  order  for  me  to  repeat 
in  substance  some  of  the  arguments  which  I  used  with 
the  Chairman  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  Senate, 
and,  so  far  as  I  was  allowed,  with  the  Sub-Committee 
of  that  body. 

I  called  the  Committee's  attention  to  the  socially 
inefficient,  what  we  call  the  dependent  class,  and  re- 
viewed some  of  the  causes  which  constantly  swell  the 
ranks  of  that  class.  That  one  of  the  great  problems 
confronting  every  statesman  is  how  to  provide  through 
taxation  for  the  support  of  this  class  was  a  matter 
that  I  did  not  need  to  emphasize.  My  plea  for  life 
insurance  was  that  beyond  every  other  organized  force 
in  human  society  it  helps  the  state  and  aids  the  states- 
man by  keeping  people  out  of  the  dependent  class ;  and 
if  we  can  successfully  establish  a  social  program  which 
keeps  people  from  becoming  dependent,  a  great  problem 
in  statecraft  will  speedily  become  simplified.  We  pay 
to  war  pensioners  over  $165,000,000  a  year,  every  dol- 
lar of  which  is  raised  by  taxation.  The  life  companies 
pay  twice  that  sum  annually  in  cash  to  beneficiaries 
and  policy-holders,  every  dollar  of  which  is  raised  by 
private  taxation.  Pensions  are  remedial.  Life  in- 
surance is  preventive.  Pensions  are  the  price  the 
people  pay  in  order  to  soften  the  pitiful  after  effects  of 
a  conflict  too  hideous  to  be  ameliorated  when  in  prog- 
ress. The  proceeds  of  life  insurance  are  provided  by 
the  people  to  protect  the  defenceless,  to  educate  the 


372  Other  Addresses 

young,  to  open  the  door  of  opportunity.  But  it  is  a 
tax,  and  to  tax  it  is  to  commit  the  economic  barbarism 
of  levying  a  tax  on  a  tax. 

This  was  the  argument  which  I  sought  to  drive  home. 
It  seems  to  me  it  is  the  consideration  which  must  appeal 
to  every  intelligent  statesman.  If  that  be  a  fact,  if 
life  insurance  in  the  great  interplay  of  the  forces  in- 
volved in  our  sociology  is  direct,  powerful  and  efficient 
in  keeping  people  out  of  the  dependent  class,  should  it, 
beyond  the  cost  of  administration,  be  taxed  at  all? 
Should  it  not  rather  be  encouraged — encouraged  as  an 
enterprise  which  in  the  long  run  solves  the  problem 
of  taxation  by  reducing  the  burdens  on  society  which 
ultimately  find  expression  in  terms  of  taxation? 

In  knowledge  of  the  economic  meaning  and  value  of 
life  insurance,  we  are  far  behind  most  of  the  enhghtened 
countries  of  the  world.  I  happen  to  be  associated  with 
a  company  which  does  business  with  substantially  all 
the  civilized  countries  of  the  globe.  In  only  a  few  are 
we  taxed  in  the  same  way  that  we  are  taxed  in  the 
United  States.  I  refrain  from  naming  those  countries 
because  the  catalogue  might  appear  in^^dious.  In  most 
of  the  great  countries  of  Europe,  whenever  a  tax  is 
laid  upon  premiums  it  is  assessed  directly  against  the 
policy-holder  and  turned  over  to  the  government. 
This  has  at  least  the  virtue  of  directness  and  the 
policy-holder  knows  what  the  government  is  doing. 
A  great  objection  to  our  system  is  its  indirection.  Few 
policy-holders  know  that  they  are  being  mulcted  by 
the  government.  In  France,  Spain,  Denmark,  Ger- 
many and  Russia,  the  premium  tax  is  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Insurance  Department  and  substan- 
tially nothing  more.    In  Great  Britain  the  tax  that  the 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         373 

company  pays  is  about  one-fourteenth  of  the  average 
rate  in  the  United  States.  In  Germany  the  rate  is 
about  one-twentieth  of  the  rate  exacted  in  the  United 
States. 

But  that  is  not  the  whole  story.  In  Great  Britain 
and  Germany  the  government  not  only  refrains  from 
lajdng  more  than  a  nominal  tax  upon  life  insurance 
when  voluntarily  taken,  but  they  compel  certain  classes 
to  insure  against  death,  accidents  and  sickness,  and 
provide  at  the  public  charge  for  old  age  pensions. 
The  cost  of  this  is  assessed  partly  on  the  insured, 
partly  upon  the  employer,  and  partly  upon  public 
funds.  The  attitude  of  these  governments  toward  the 
idea  of  life  insurance  is  so  far  in  advance  of  the  attitude 
maintained  by  our  various  legislatures  that  the  con- 
trast is  painful.  They  have  learned  what  we  must 
learn;  they  have  learned  under  autocratic  forms  of 
government  what  we  are  learning  very  slowly  under  a 
democratic  form  of  government. 

I  have  said  that  we  are  making  progress.  I  wish  I 
could  say  that  we  shall  ultimately  get  justice  under  the 
super\dsion  to  which  all  insurance  is  now  subjected. 
What  would  the  attainment  of  justice  in  taxation  in- 
volve? It  would  mean  that  forty-eight  separate  State 
legislatures  and  the  legislatures  of  all  the  Territories, 
as  well  as  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  must 
reduce  taxation  on  insurance  of  all  kinds  to  a  basis 
which  would  represent  merely  the  cost  of  efficient 
state  administration.  It  would  mean  the  surrender  of 
over  $16,000,000  in  annual  revenue.  Some  of  you  may 
beheve  that  can  be  done;  I  am  frank  to  say  that  I  do  not. 

And  yet  I  believe  we  shall  ultimately  get  justice. 
Europe  has  learned  the  lesson;  but  the  people  did  not 


374  Other  Addresses 

learn  the  lesson  and  then  enforce  it ;  the  lesson  was  first 
learned  by  authority.  The  value  of  hfe  insurance  was 
first  appreciated  in  Europe  and  is  being  imposed  on  the 
people,  by  authority.  The  one  great  authority  in  the 
United  States  which  can  enforce  justice  is  the  Federal 
Supreme  Court. 

That  Court  went  wrong  economically  in  1869  in 
the  case  of  Paul  vs.  Virginia.  It  has  generally  been 
assumed,  in  that  case,  and  in  some  subsequent  cases 
where  the  doctrine  of  that  case  was  reaffirmed,  that  the 
Court  irrevocably  declared  insurance  in  all  its  forms 
and  however  practiced  not  to  be  commerce.  The 
language  used  in  some  later  decisions,  however,  implies 
that  the  decision  then  made  applied  only  to  insurance 
as  ordinarily  practiced,  and  later  writers  have  re- 
peatedly intimated  that  in  the  case  of  Paul  vs.  Virginia 
the  Supreme  Court  has  not  disposed  of  the  whole 
subject  of  insurance  nor  settled  the  question  as  to 
w^hether  or  not  it  is  commerce  as  practiced  now,  es- 
pecially in  Ufe  insurance.  The  practical  effect  of  that 
decision,  however,  was  to  leave  the  whole  matter  to 
the  tender  mercies  of  the  States  and  they  are  taking 
out  of  insurance  as  a  whole  annually  about  817,500,000. 
To  expect  the  States  voluntarily  to  give  that  up  is  to 
expect  too  much.  You  might  as  well  expect  the  bene- 
ficiary of  a  monopoly  voluntarily  to  come  forward  and 
renounce  his  pri\'ileges.  Human  nature  is  not  made 
that  way. 

What  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  may 
do  when  insurance  and  especially  Hfe  insurance  as  it 
is  now  practiced  is  fully  presented  and  discussed,  is 
another  matter.  Good  lawyers  believe  that  if  the 
Supreme  Court  should  enter  a  decree  declaring  that 


i 


The  Taxation  of  Organized  Beneficence         375 

insurance  and  especially  life  insurance  as  now  practiced 
is  commerce,  it  would  simply  be  recognizing  what  has 
always  been  true,  and  would  not  be  reversing  the 
controlling  case  of  Paul  vs.  Virginia.  The  effect  of  such 
an  opinion  would  be  magical.  I  firmly  believe  that 
sooner  or  later  such  an  opinion  must  be  rendered. 

When  that  times  comes  not  only  will  the  great  body 
of  this  taxation  fall  away,  but  an  opportunity  will  be 
created  for  the  expansion  of  a  great  democratic  idea, 
one  which  applies  the  principles  of  democracy  to  labor 
and  the  products  of  labor,  to  society  and  the  problems 
of  society,  as  effectually  as  manhood  suffrage,  in  theory 
at  least,  enforces  the  rights  of  humanity  in  the  pro- 
cesses of  a  democratic  government.  Through  the 
expansion  of  that  idea,  under  the  control  of  one  central 
authority  as  against  some  fifty  authorities  which  now 
control,  we  shall  hasten  enormously  the  time  when 
the  people  will  understand  that  a  life  insurance  com- 
pany is  indeed  a  pure  democracy,  that  it  is  a  brother 
to  all  who  have  long  sought  some  process  by  which 
the  sovereignty  of  the  individual  may  be  established, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  immeasurable  strength  of 
men  working  together  may  be  realized. 


AN  OPEN  LETTER 


TO    THE    COMMISSIONER   OF 

THE  WORLD'S  INSURANCE  CONGRESS.  SAN  FRANCISCO,  CALIFORNIA 

NEW  YORK,  MAY  15,  I9I4 


May  15,  1914. 
Mr.  W.  L.  HATHAWAY, 

Commissioner,  World's  Insurance  Congress, 
San  Francisco,  California. 

.EAR  SIR:     San  Francisco  is  one  of  the 
l\  necessary  cities  of  the  world,  but  that  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition  of  1915  is  to 
be  held  within  her  gates  is  attributable  in 
very  large  measure  to  insurance  and  its 
singular  service. 

I  do  not  say  that  San  Francisco  would  not  have  been 
rebuilt  in  any  event,  but  the  difference  between  San 
Francisco  as  it  is  and  San  Francisco  as  it  would  have 
been  if  insurance  had  not  almost  immediately  provided 
its  stricken  people  with  $190,000,000  after  calamity 
fell,  is  something  so  considerable  that,  while  we  may 
not  exactly  measure  it,  everybody  must  recognize  it. 
Of  this  $190,000,000  nearly  $60,000,000  came  from 
across  the  Atlantic.  In  other  words,  the  foundations 
of  insurance  were  wider  than  the  nation,  wider  than 
the  continent,  and  the  means  thus  provided  for  recon- 
structing San  Francisco  were  adequate  because  of  a  sub- 
stantially unrestricted  operation  of  the  insurance  idea. 

376 


An  Open  Letter  377 

No  idea,  therefore,  of  the  many  which  will  be  dis- 
cussed and  advanced  during  this  Exposition  will  so 
well  harmonize  with  its  environment  as  insurance. 

A  great  fact  with  which  the  coming  World's  Insur- 
ance Congress  will  be  faced — indeed  the  greatest  fact 
— is  that  insurance  of  all  types  in  the  United  States  is 
seriously  menaced  at  the  present  time  by  conflicting 
and  hostile  governmental  regulations  which  threaten 
— indeed  have  already  begun — to  impair  its  usefulness. 

We  all  know  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  the  outgrowth  of  commercial  necessity. 
The  original  colonies  did  not  form  the  Union  because 
they  wanted  to.  In  commercial  matters  they  hated 
each  other  cordially.  After  they  had  won  indepen- 
dence, they  indulged  in  acts  of  commercial  reprisal 
which  seem  to  us  at  this  distance  almost  unbelievable. 
In  order  to  vent  their  spleen,  some  of  the  colonies  dis- 
criminated in  favor  of  European  nations  as  against 
their  sister  colonies.  The  menace  of  outside  interfer- 
ence finally  became  so  real  and  the  danger  so  imminent 
that  the  colonies  were  compelled  to  put  aside  some  of 
their  animosities  in  order  to  get  together  for  the  com- 
mon defence.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
adopted  in  1789  was  the  result  of  this  movement.  If 
at  that  time  the  people  of  the  various  colonies  had 
understood  how  flexible  the  instrument  was,  how 
nationality  would  spring  up  under  it,  how  the  central 
government  would  gradually  develop  a  real  sovereignty 
in  place  of  the  spurious  sovereignty  with  which  they 
deluded  themselves — they  would  not  have  adopted  it. 

The  notion  that  the  colonies  were  severally  sovereign 
— which  was  never  true — survived  the  birth  of  the  new 
nation  and  has  plagued  it  ever  since.     Nationality  has 


378  Other  Addresses 

slowly  but  surely  evolved  in  the  intervening  years, 
but  the  old  prejudices  and  the  old  animosities  have 
steadily  fought  that  development. 

Chief  Justice  Marshall  had  a  clear  vision  of  nation- 
ality and  in  some  of  his  great  decisions  did  as  much  to 
give  the  Constitution  its  present  meaning  as  the  men 
who  fashioned  it  in  that  immortal  convention  in  Phila- 
delphia. IMarshall's  definition  of  the  relation  between 
the  general  government  and  the  States  was  substan- 
tially this: 

"The  action  of  the  general  government  should  be 
apphed  to  all  the  external  concerns  of  the  nation, 
and  to  those  internal  concerns  which  affect  the  States 
generally;  while  to  the  States  is  reserved  the  con- 
trol of  those  matters  which  are  completely  within  a 
particular  State,  w^hich  do  not  affect  other  States, 
and  with  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  interfere 
for  the  purpose  of  executing  some  of  the  general 
powers  of  government." 

If  the  Supreme  Court  had  adhered  to  that  doctrine, 
the  conditions  which  threaten  the  usefulness  and 
efficiency  of  all  kinds  of  insurance  would  not  to-day 
exist,  but  unfortunately  in  1868  the  Court  fell  into  a 
great  economic  error  in  declaring  that  insurance  was 
not  commerce.  It  repeated  the  error,  as  Courts  are 
all  prone  to  do,  from  time  to  time;  but  as  the  question 
in  its  modern  relations,  had  never  been  fully  presented 
to  the  Court,  it  was  hoped  when  a  fresh  case,  invoh-ing 
no  other  issue,  was  presented,  the  Court  might — as  it 
has  done  many  times  in  other  matters — reverse  its 
earlier  decisions  and  declare,  as  the  interests  of  the 
public  clearly  demand,  that  insurance  is  commerce. 
Those  who  hoped  for  that  result  perhaps  overlooked 


An  Open  Letter  379 

the  force  of  inertia.  They  did  not  properly  appreciate 
the  restraining  power  of  estabUshed  practices  and  ac- 
cumulated precedents.  If  insurance  were  declared  to 
be  commerce,  down  would  go  the  whole  fabric  of  State 
supervision,  and  away  would  go  something  hke  $17,- 
000,000  or  S18,000,000  taken  annually  by  politics  from 
the  prudent  people  who  through  insurance  protect 
their  business  and  their  families.  Supervision  by  forty- 
eight  separate  States  involves  political  patronage  and 
great  political  power.  To  annihilate  by  a  single  de- 
cree a  system  so  entrenched  required  courage  of  the 
highest  order.  When  the  issue  was  at  last  squarely 
made  up  two  of  the  Court  faced  the  facts  and  stood 
for  the  doctrine  (N.  Y.  Life  Ins.  Co.  vs.  Deer  Lodge 
County,  Montana)  that  insurance  is  commerce;  but 
the  majority  adhered  to  the  precedents  and  by  so 
doing  shut  the  door  to  any  relief  under  the  commerce 
clause  of  the  Constitution  as  it  now  stands. 

This  was  a  heavy  blow  to  insurance,  and  served  to 
emphasize  an  increasing  peril.  To  be  supervised  by 
forty-eight  separate  masters,  each  of  whom  claims  sub- 
stantial control  over  all  transactions  wherever  had, 
means,  for  that  business,  a  recurrence  of  the  hostilities, 
the  animosities  and  the  commercial  impotence  which 
menaced  the  colonies  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution. 

Under  such  conditions  it  is  rather  remarkable  that 
companies  were  able,  up  to  within  a  few  years,  to 
comply  with  the  conflicting  requirements  of  all  these 
masters  and  do  business  in  all  the  States.  Some  seven 
years  ago,  substantially  all  the  life  companies  were 
driven  out  of  Texas  because  of  drastic,  local  legislation. 
Since  that  time  fire  companies  have  had  serious  trou- 


380  Other  Addresses 

bles  in  Missouri  and  are  now  ha\-ing  great  difficulties 
in  Kentucky. 

With  our  highest  Court  explicitlj^  denjdng  to  the 
Federal  government  any  jurisdiction  whatever  over 
insurance  (except  the  power  to  tax),  the  notable  thing 
is  not  that  we  are  now  having  trouble  but  that  we  did 
not  have  it  earlier. 

Insurance  long  ago  began  an  agitation  looking  to- 
w^ard  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution, — an  amend- 
ment which  would  clearly  place  amongst  the  enumerated 
powers  of  Congress  the  authority  to  control  insurance 
within  the  States,  Territories  and  possessions  of  the 
United  States.  Since  the  Supreme  Court  has  again 
and  finally  declared  that  insurance  is  not  commerce, 
the  agitation  has  been  renewed. 

The  agitation  has  taken  on  new  life  because  of  a 
decision  by  the  Supreme  Court,  handed  down  recently, 
in  which  a  statute  of  Kansas  is  upheld  which  gives  the 
Superintendent  of  Insurance  of  that  State  authority  to 
fix  fire  insurance  rates.  Of  course  if  the  Legislature  of 
Kansas  can  fix  fire  insurance  rates,  it  can  fix  life  insur- 
ance rates,  and  the  rates  for  every  type  of  insurance. 
Indeed,  one  of  the  Justices,  in  dissenting,  said  of  the 
opinion,  that  it 

a*  *  *  ^g  j^Q^  ^  mere  entering  wedge,  but 
reaches  the  end  from  the  beginning  and  announces 
a  principle  which  points  inevitably  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  price  of  every  article  sold  and  the 
price  of  every  service  offered  can  be  regulated  by 
statute." 

Insurance,  therefore,  finds  itself  in  this  position: 
It  seeks  to  do  business  in  all  the  States;  indeed  it 
must  if  it  works  efficiently  and  successfully. 


An  Open  Letter  381 

The  basis  of  the  structure  must  be  broad, — broader, 
much  broader  than  any  State,  broader  than  any  half 
dozen  States;  indeed  added  strength  comes  if  the  basis 
is  broader  than  any  nation. 

But  it  is  told  by  the  Supreme  Court,  first,  that  it  can 
operate  in  the  various  States  only  by  their  permission, 
and  on  such  terms  as  they  severally  establish;  and, 
second,  that,  operating  in  that  fashion,  it  is  subject 
not  merely  to  regulation  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
that  word,  but  to  the  exercise  of  an  authority  which 
may  fix  the  price  at  which  it  shall  sell  its  wares — in 
other  words,  to  the  same  authority  under  which  a 
person's  property  may  be  taken  for  the  public  good. 

To  the  doctrine  that  States  may  fix  insurance  rates 
two  Justices  dissented  strongly,  and  as  evidence  that 
the  insurance  contract  had  always  been  considered  a 
private  contract  and  not  impressed  with  any  public 
necessity,  they  cited  the  fact  that  no  State  had  earlier 
attempted  to  exercise  such  authority.  The  distin- 
guished dissenters  overlooked  the  fact  that  the  State 
of  Wisconsin  some  years  ago  fixed  a  maximum  basis 
for  the  premiums  of  life  insurance,  not  only  for  that 
State  but  incidentally  and  necessarily  for  all  the 
States.  For  a  life  insurance  company  to  charge  a 
different  rate  in  different  States  would  be  so  imprac- 
ticable that  business  would  be  impossible.  The  dis- 
senting Justices  overlooked  this  precedent  because  it 
has  not  since  happened  that  any  other  State  has 
been  moved  to  do  a  similar  thing,  and  no  test  of  the 
validity  of  the  statute  has  been  made.  But  since  the 
Wisconsin  statute  was  passed,  4ife  insurance  has  been 
keenly  alive  to  what  would  happen  if  other  States 

26 


382  Other  Addresses 

should  take  like  action.  Our  highest  Court  now  says 
that  all  the  States  have  authority  so  to  act. 

In  these  circumstances  insurance  is  as  certainly  men- 
aced by  the  animosities  inevitably  and  always  pro- 
voked by  the  doctrine  of  States'  Rights  as  the  com- 
merce of  the  colonies  was  before  the  birth  of  the  na- 
tion. Relief  must  be  had.  The  great  problem  before 
all  insurance  is: 

Along  what  Unes  shall  reUef  be  sought? 

Encouraged  by  the  dissent  in  the  Deer  Lodge  case, 
many  strong  men  believe  that  if  Congress  could  be 
induced  to  pass  a  statute  taking  charge  of  insurance 
when  it  involves  the  citizens  of  more  than  one  State, 
the  Supreme  Court — notwithstanding  its  earlier  de- 
cisions— would  sustain  such  a  statute.  In  other  words, 
it  is  one  thing  for  the  Court  to  pass  on  an  abstraction 
and  another  to  pass  upon  a  Federal  statute.  Two  of 
the  Court  in  passing  on  an  abstraction  said  that  insur- 
ance is  commerce.  It  is  altogether  probable  that 
others  hesitated,  and  that  hesitation  would  have  been 
resolved  in  favor  of  the  co-ordinate  branch  of  govern- 
ment if  that  co-ordinate  branch,  in  the  exercise  of  its 
discretion,  had  assumed  control  of  insurance. 

But  upon  the  whole  and  in  order  to  reach  a  conclu- 
sion that  will  be  unequivocal,  insurance  opinion  rather 
leans  toward  an  effort  to  secure  an  amendment  to  the 
Federal  Constitution  which  will  specifically  put  all 
insurance  done  in  an  interstate  way  under  the  control 
of  Congress. 

In  justifying  the  Court's  action  in  upholding  the 
validity  of  the  Kansas  statute,  Mr.  Justice  McKenna 
draws  a  striking  picture  of  the  character  and  usefulness 
of  fire  insurance,  seeking  to  drive  home  its  great  im- 


An  Open  Letter  383 

portance  and  enforce  its  public  relations.  His  word 
painting  may  or  may  not  justify  the  doctrine  that  a 
State  may  fix  rates,  but  it  clearly  proves  that  if  any 
power  is  to  fix  rates  in  this  country,  it  must  be  the 
Federal  pow^r  and  not  the  power  of  the  separate  States. 
He  says: 

"The  effect  of  insurance — indeed,  it  has  been 
said  its  fundamental  object — is  to  distribute  the 
loss  over  as  wide  an  area  as  possible.  In  other 
words,  the  loss  is  spread  over  the  country,  the 
disaster  to  an  indi\'idual  is  shared  by  many,  the 
disaster  to  a  community  is  shared  by  other  com- 
munities; great  catastrophes  are  thereby  lessened, 
and,  it  may  be,  repaired.  In  assimilation  of  in- 
sm^ance  to  a  tax,  the  companies  have  been  said  to 
be  the  mere  machinery  by  which  the  inevitable 
losses  by  fire  are  distributed  so  as  to  fall  as 
lightly  as  possible  on  the  public  at  large,  the  body 
of  the  insured,  not  the  companies,  paying  the  tax. 
Their  efficiency,  therefore,  and  solvency  are  of 
great  concern.  The  other  objects,  direct  and  in- 
direct, of  insurance  we  need  not  mention.  In- 
deed, it  may  be  enough  to  say,  without  stating 
other  effects  of  insurance,  that  a  large  part  of  the 
country's  wealth,  subject  to  uncertainty  of  loss 
through  fire,  is  protected  by  insurance.  This 
demonstrates  the  interest  of  the  public  in  it  and 
we  need  not  dispute  with  the  economists  that  this 
is  the  result  of  the  "substitution  of  certain  for 
uncertain  loss"  or  the  diffusion  of  positive  loss  over 
a  large  group  of  persons,  as  we  have  already  said 
to  be  certainly  one  of  its  effects.  We  can  see, 
therefore,  how  it  has  come  to  be  considered  a 
matter  of  public  concern  to  regulate  it,  and,  gov- 
ernmental insurance  has  its  advocates  and  even 
examples.  Contracts  of  insurance,  therefore,  have 
greater  public  consequence  than  contracts  between 
individuals  to  do  or  not  to  do  a  particular  thing 
whose  effect  stops  with  the  individuals." 


384  Other  Addresses 

The  distinguished  Justice,  in  this  impressive  de- 
scription of  the  service  to  business  and  society  ren- 
dered by  fire  insurance,  described  at  the  same  time  the 
service  and  the  nature  of  every  considerable  kind  of 
insurance;  but  he  apparently  did  not  perceive  that 
what  he  described  existed  and  was  being  justiced  only 
because  the  State  powers,  which  the  Court  then  con- 
firmed, had  not  hitherto  been  exercised.  The  Justice, 
in  other  words,  based  his  decree  on  the  existence  of  a 
service  and  a  relation  which  will  hereafter  be  gravely 
limited  and  embarrassed,  if  not  largely  destroyed,  by 
that  self-same  decree.  If  the  States  had  from  the 
beginning  exercised  the  rate-making  power,  in  addition 
to  current  regulations,  we  should  now  have  in  this 
country  no  great  fire  insurance  companies,  no  great 
life  insurance  companies,  no  great  fidelity  or  surety 
companies, — just  as  we  should  now  not  be  a  nation  if 
the  Confederation  had  not  been  abandoned  and  the 
Union  created. 

Where  the  exercise  of  a  named  authority  will  cer- 
tainly diminish,  if  not  substantially  destroy,  the  mat- 
ter on  which  it  operates,  either  the  thing  to  be  so 
governed  is  not  entirely  useful  or  the  authority  to  be 
so  exercised  is  not  entirely  wholesome.  For  our  high- 
est Court  to  find  in  the  wide  usefulness  of  an  idea 
warrant  for  the  confirmation  of  an  authority  which 
will  destroy  that  usefulness  is  a  curious  judicial  devel- 
opment. The  majority  opinion  leaves  no  doubt  as  to 
the  entire  usefulness  of  insurance,  while  the  strong 
minority  opinion  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  unwhole- 
some character  of  an  authority  which  will  establish 
forty-eight  separate  rate-making  powers. 


An  Open  Letter  385 

What  other  thing,  therefore,  so  distinctive,  what 
other  topic  so  \dtal,  what  other  matter  so  certainly 
related  to  the  future  of  business  can  your  coming 
Congress  so  well  deal  with? 

Merely  to  meet  and  discuss  old  topics — such  as  man- 
agement and  taxation — will  have  a  limited  interest. 
To  seize  boldly  on  this  situation,  to  speak  in  no  uncer- 
tain tones  with  regard  to  it,  to  pledge,  so  far  as  you 
properly  can,  all  the  powers  of  insurance  in  its  various 
forms  and  through  all  its  vast  organization  to  a  cam- 
paign in  favor  of  a  Constitutional  amendment  of  the 
character  indicated,  would  be  at  once  an  act  of  leader- 
ship and  of  statesmanship. 

I  commend  such  action  to  your  careful  consideration. 

Yours  truly. 

President. 


THE  SIN  OF  THE  CHURCH 


DELIVERED  AT  A  DINNER  TO 

RT.  REV.  WILLIAM  LAWRENCE.  BISHOP  OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 

AS  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  CHURCH  PENSION  FUND  OF  THE  PROTESTANT 

EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  WALDORF-ASTORIA,  NEW  YORK, 

FEBRUARY  5.  I9I7 


0-NIGHT  I  shall  shake  the  spreading 
chestnut  tree  very  gently,  only  enough  to 
protest  that  I  am  not  quaUfied  to  speak 
here  because  my  business  is  Ufe  insurance 
and  that  isn't  the  kind  of  insurance  that 
naturally  interests  a  gathering  of  churchmen. 

I  was  persuaded  to  accept  your  invitation  because  I 
hold  that  business  men  should  encourage  every  e\'idence 
that  a  sense  of  business  and  business  sense  are  ger- 
minating in  the  Church. 

When  the  Church,  faced  with  a  problem  of  salvation, 
stops  discussing  the  mysterious  ways  of  Pro\ddence 
and  turns  to  the  Actuary,  a  new  era  is  clearly  dawning. 
If  this  goes  on  the  business  man  will  begin  to  go  to 
church  again. 

The  problem  this  Committee  is  seeking  to  solve  is  a 
problem  in  salvation, — nothing  less.  But  in  this  case 
the  one  ostensibly  to  be  saved  is  not  a  sinner.  This 
creates  sufficient  confusion  to  lift  the  whole  question 
into  the  realm  of  theology.  To  bring  salvation  to  one 
who  is  not  a  sinner  is  of  course  foolishness  to  the 
dogmatic  mind.     At  first  blush  the  puzzle  is  as  com- 

386 


The  Sin  of  the  Church  387 

plex  as  the  one  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  attacked  when 
he  sought  to  Christianize  Aristotle. 

It  is  so  natural  and  so  easy  for  the  Churchman  to 
charge  everything  to  sin  and  locate  the  sinner!  As  a 
dogmatist  that  is  his  chief  business.  Faced  with  a 
problem  in  salvation  we  may  safely  agree  with  the 
dogmatist  and  assume  that  sin  has  been  committed 
by  someone.  If  then  those  to  be  saved  are  not  sinners, 
who  are? 

Directly  stated  the  situation  is  this :  Certain  devoted 
and  loyal  servants  have  grown  old.  If  that  be  a  fault, 
then  are  we  all  damned,  or  soon  will  be.  They  have 
grown  old  and  in  addition  have  not  now  the  where- 
withal to  live.  That  rasps  on  our  nerves  and  disturbs 
our  complacency.  Why  have  they  not  the  where- 
withal to  live?  What  have  they  been  doing?  Who 
controlled  their  productive  years?  They  have  worked 
hard  enough  and  long  enough  and  faithfully  enough  and 
yet  they  are  in  a  parlous  state.  Under  the  conditions 
which  hedge  them  about  could  they  as  a  body  have 
put  aside  something  for  their  old  age?  We  know  they 
could  not.  Where  then  does  the  fault  lie?  As  good 
dogmatists  if  we  acquit  them  we  must  damn  somebody. 
When  we  acquit  them — as  we  must  and  do — we  auto- 
matically point  out  the  sinner. 

The  man  who  expiates  a  sin  is  always  and  properly 
humble.  He  is  paying  a  debt,  making  up  a  deficit, 
covering  a  default.  He  emerges  from  his  closet  strength- 
ened in  his  soul  but  not  boastful. 

This  Fund  of  $5,000,000  primarily  pays  a  debt,  makes 
up  a  deficit,  covers  in  part  a  default.  It  is  a  fund  for 
the  future  protection  of  servants,  already  old,  from 
whom    the    Church    has    received    an    immeasurable 


388  Other  Addresses 

service  and  to  whom  the  Church  has  hitherto  financially 
defaulted ;  it  is  all  that  and  something  finer — it  is  in  its 
spirit  and  purpose  a  moral  ofifering  to  be  placed  on  the 
altar  of  the  God  of  Eternal  Justice  in  the  hope  that 
thereby  the  Church  may  be  purged  of  a  great  sin. 
From  her  closet  the  Church  emerges  to-night  not 
boastful,  but  nevertheless  with  uplifted  and  shining 
face. 

When  Church  and  State  were  finally  separated  in  this 
country — and  that  didn't  happen  until  Congrega- 
tionalism ceased  to  be  statute  law  in  Massachusetts — 
the  responsibihty  of  the  State  toward  the  Preacher 
naturally  disappeared  along  with  its  controlhng  autho- 
rity. 

Unable  longer  to  tell  a  Priest  or  Preacher  what  he 
should  say  or  what  he  should  believe,  the  State  naturally 
lost  interest  in  how  he  lived  or  whether  he  lived  at  all. 
It  is  true  that  the  State  still  exercises  a  paternal  dis- 
cretion, under  which  it  neglects  to  levy  and  collect 
taxes  on  some  very  valuable  real  estate  which  you  own, 
but  that  beneficent  attitude  is  justified  on  the  ground 
that  no  one  can  imagine  how  wicked  we  would  all  be 
but  for  your  presence  amongst  us.  Moreover  it  is  not 
so  difficult  beneficially  to  tickle  the  pubhc  purse  if  you 
do  it  negatively.  The  State  is  sometimes  willing  to 
forgive  if  it  is  thereby  relieved  from  paying  out  the 
coin  of  the  realm.  In  other  words  the  State  may 
forgive  some  of  your  taxes  but  it  will  never  pay  your 
pensions. 

This  Church  was  caught  up  in  the  enthusiasm  for 
indi\'idual  liberty  which  was  crystallized  into  Con- 
stitutional form  in  Philadelphia  in  the  Summer  of  1787. 
In  order  that  no  Church  should  indulge  in  illusory 


The  Sin  of  the  Church  389 

hopes  the  people  in  the  first  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution denied  to  Congress  the  right  to  make  any 
law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion  or  pro- 
hibiting the  free  exercise  thereof. 

Under  the  doctrine  of  indi\ddual  liberty  the  citizen 
and  especially  the  citizen  in  business  was  of  necessity 
projected  into  a  struggle  about  as  merciless  as  a  charge 
on  the  field  of  battle.  He  might  emerge  a  leader  or  a 
cripple,  or  he  might  not  emerge  at  all.  That  was  his 
lookout.  It  still  is.  The  Priest  without  the  business 
man's  freedom  had  substantially  to  emulate  the  busi- 
ness man's  example.  There  was  however  this  dif- 
ference. The  business  man  could  go  in  or  not  as  he 
saw  fit.  If  he  was  knocked  out  he  could  begin  again. 
He  could  fail  and  "come  back"  as  we  put  it.  Not  so 
with  the  Preacher  or  the  Priest.  He  could  not  "come 
back".  The  Church  in\4ted  him  in;  the  Church  used 
him,  demanding  all  his  time;  the  Church  with  the 
authority  of  the  apostolic  succession  back  of  it  sent 
him  hither  and  j^on,  and  when  smitten  by  failure  or 
age  he  turned  to  her  for  protection  she  denied  the 
responsibility  that  should  always  go  with  such  authority. 
That  has  been  her  great  sin. 

Business  began  to  see  its  duty  in  this  matter  long 
ago :  partly  from  pressure  applied  by  labor,  partly  from 
humanitarian  impulses,  but  chiefly  from  business  con- 
siderations. Nearly  every  great  business  enterprise 
in  this  country  long  since  adopted  some  plan  which 
recognized  an  obligation  not  expressed  or  expressible 
in  the  terms  of  hiring.  Business  soon  discovered  that 
recognition  of  this  obligation  was  not  only  sound 
socially  and  morally  but  that  it  paid  substantial 
dividends. 


390  Other  Addresses 

The  Church  lagged  behind,  as  it  usually  does.  There 
is  still  a  Methodist  Church  North  and  a  Methodist 
Church  South,  although  the  Ci\'il  War  ended  fifty 
years  ago  and  its  bitternesses  are  largely  forgotten  by 
the  people.  The  reproach  involved  in  that  reflection 
does  not  apply  to  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
but  as  a  historic  fact  it  had  a  narrow  escape.  Sub- 
stantially every  American  Protestant  and  Anghcan 
Church  has  in  its  neglect  of  its  aged  servants  shamed 
the  faith  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  who  when  trapped  by 
his  ambitions  and  about  to  fall  from  power  is  made 
by  Shakespeare  to  say: 

"*********    my  robe 
And  my  integrity  to  Heaven  is  all 
I  dare  now  call  my  own.     O  Cromwell!  Cromwell! 
Had  I  but  served  mj'  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  served  my  King,  He  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies." 

Whether  Wolsey  believed  that  the  State  which  was 
rejecting  him  as  a  Minister  would  take  care  of  him  as 
a  Bishop  (as  it  did)  or  whether  his  words  expressed  a 
general  faith  in  Providence  is  not  material.  No  Priest 
here  can  get  any  help  from  the  State  in  his  old  age, 
help  from  the  Church  has  been  very  unreUable,  and 
it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  majority  of  aged  Priests 
having  thoroughly  tried  out  what  is  looseh^  called 
Providence,  will  gladly  welcome  the  Pension  Fund  as 
a  material  improvement  on  that.  Hitherto  his  robe 
and  his  integrity  to  Heaven  have  indeed  been  all  the 
aged  Priest  dared  call  his  own. 

This  is  one  of  the  few  considerable  countries  in  the 
world  where  there  is  real  religious  freedom.  But 
Priests  grow  old  just  as  quickly  here  as  they  do  in 


The  Sin  of  the  Church  391 

countries  where  the  State  makes  provision  for  their 
decUning  years;  they  break  from  work  and  worry  as 
readily;  they  devote  their  hves  to  the  Church  as  un- 
selfishly. In  its  willingness  to  take  to  the  full  the 
benefits  of  freedom  and  in  its  neglect  to  assume  the 
responsibihties  which  authority  previously  carried,  the 
Church  has  done  only  what  every  American  citizen 
has  been  doing  since  the  foundation  of  the  government. 
In  that  respect  it  has  imitated  the  morals  of  business 
and  has  imitated  them  badly.  In  some  particulars 
it  has  not  responded  to  the  moral  standards  of  business, 
and  even  the  great  achievement  we  celebrate  to-night 
leaves  something  still  undone.  Neither  in  his  age  nor 
in  his  youth  has  the  Church  put  the  Priest  in  the 
proper  attitude  before  the  pubUc.  You  have  sent  him 
into  a  competitive  world,  where  men  must  be  men  to 
win  the  respect  of  men,  and  you  have  made  it  almost 
impossible  for  him  to  win  and  hold  that  respect;  I 
mean  the  respect  of  men  not  already  bound  to  him  by 
some  Church  connection. 

Naturally  our  general  public  is  disposed  to  judge  the 
Priest  by  the  ordinary  standards  of  business  and  the 
Church  makes  it  difficult  for  him  to  rise  to  that  stan- 
dard. It  still  allows  him  to  win  the  contempt  of  the 
unthinking  by  accepting  railroad  tickets  intended  for 
children,  and  a  rake-off  on  goods  bought,  which  is 
saved  from  being  graft  because  it  is  supposed  in  some 
mysterious  way  to  be  justified.  You  have  forced  your 
Priests  to  seem  something  less  than  responsible  men, 
a,nd  when  they  have  earned  the  lack  of  respect  which 
not  infrequently  has  emptied  your  pews  and  forced 
their  resignations,  you  have  shown  that  whatever  the 
source  of  Wolsey's  faith  he  was  wrong,  because  after 


392  Other  Addresses 

ser\dce  that  was  zealous  to  a  degree  these  servants  in 
their  age  have  been  left  naked  to  their  enemies. 

This  movement  to  create  a  fund  wdth  which  to  right 
in  part  the  wrong  done  these  aged  and  devoted  servants 
is  a  statesman-like  undertaking.  When  consummated 
it  will  immediately  make  these  men  stronger, — stronger 
in  their  own  consciousness  and  stronger  before  the 
public.  Apart  from  its  power  to  meet  what  has  always 
been  a  just  obligation  it  will  bring  its  best  results  in 
the  increased  respect  with  which  all  thoughtful  men 
will  hereafter  regard  the  Church  itself. 

WiUiam  Lawrence  is  a  great  Bishop;  but  I  consider 
him  far  greater  as  a  statesman.  This  Pension  Fund 
morally  is  a  constructive,  soul-healing  undertaking; 
it  will  powerfully  support  your  sermons  and  your 
services.  It  commands  respect  because  it  will  restore 
and  re-establish  the  responsibiUty  which  the  State 
abandoned  and  which  you  did  not  assume  when  Church 
and  State  happily  parted  company. 

The  statesman  who  conceived  this  plan  for  dis- 
charging a  debt  due  to  men  who  are  finishing  their 
labors  will  doubtless  later  on  propose  another  plan 
which  will  appeal  to  similar  men  who  are  about  to 
begin  their  labors;  a  plan  which  will  attract  the  young 
and  the  strong,  men  who  in  the  relentless  competition 
of  American  life  will  win  and  at  all  times  keep  the 
respect  of  other  strong  men. 

Until  I  had  some  personal  experience  as  a  Vestrj-man 
I  had  no  idea  of  the  helplessness  of  the  aged  clergy, 
no  idea  of  the  wickedness  of  what  I  call  the  sin  of  the 
Church.  But  now  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
is  about  to  expiate  her  sin. 


The  Sin  of  the  Church  393 

Like  Sir  Launfal  she  went  out  in  shining  armor  in 
Quest  of  the  Grail  and  seeing  a  leper  at  her  gates  she 

"******     tossed  him  a  piece  of  gold." 

Returning  like  Sir  Launfal  after  many  and  vain 
wanderings  she  has  met  the  leper  again.  To-night  she 
does  not  toss  him  a  piece  of  gold,  she  di\'ides  a  crust 
with  him  and  gives  him  to  drink  from  a  wooden  bowl. 
The  light  that  Sir  Launfal  then  saw  now  shines  in  the 
Soul  of  this  Church  and  the  voice  that  Sir  Launfal 
heard  is  ringing  in  her  ears,     Lowell  puts  it  thus: 

"A  light  shone  round  about  the  place 

The  leper  no  longer  crouched  by  his  side 

But  stood  before  him  glorified. 
********** 

And  the  voice  that  was  calmer  than  silence  said: 

'Lo  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 

In  many  climes,  without  avail, 

Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail: 

Behold  it  is  here, — this  cup  which  thou 

Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now; 

This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee. 

This  water  His  blood  that  died  on  the  tree; 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 

In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need; 

Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share, — 

For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare; 

Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three, — 

Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor  and  Me.'  " 


THE  RELATION  BETWEEN 

AMERICAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  AND 

AMERICAN  RAILROADS 


REMARKS  BEFORE  THE 

INTERSTATE  COMMERCE  COMMISSION,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  IN 

BEHALF  OF  THE  NATIONAL  ASSOCIATION  OF  OWNERS 

OF  RAILROAD  SECURITIES,  JUNE  8.  1917 


Gentlemen  of  the  Commission: 

The  Life  Companies  of  the  United  States  have  a 
total  of  what  we  call  "outstanding  insurance" — that 
is  the  face  of  their  promises  to  pay — aggregating 
$25,000,000,000. 

At  their  face  these  contracts  considerably  exceed  the 
present  bonded  debt  of  Great  Britain,  they  are  equal  to 
about  one-eighth  the  present  estimated  wealth  of  this 
Nation.  The  integrity  of  the  enterprise  therefore  is  a 
matter  of  capital  importance.  Because  the  invest- 
ments of  this  enterprise  in  Railroad  securities  are  now  so 
large  its  problems  can  be  complicated  and  its  efficiency 
powerfully  influenced  by  the  future  prosperity  or 
otherwise  of  the  properties  you  supervise  and  regulate. 

To  show  how  profoundly  the  future  of  American  Life 
Insurance  may  be  affected  by  the  future  prosperity  or 
otherwise  of  American  Railroads  it  is  not  enough 
merely  to  point  to  the  great  totals  of  Railroad  securi- 
ties held  by  the  Life  Companies.  The  total  as  of 
January  1,  1916,  is  so  large,  however,  approximating  at 

394 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        395 

book  value  $1,583,000,000  (of  which  stocks  amount  to 
$39,000,000),  that  it  requires  no  expert  knowledge  to 
recognize  a  vital  relation  here,  viewing  these  invest- 
ments merely  as  ordinary  investments. 

But  the  relation  between  these  two  great  enterprises 
has  an  importance  and  carries  an  obligation  which  a 
mere  statement  of  the  gross  investment  does  not  con- 
vey. In  order  to  show  this,  I  shall  have  to  state  briefly 
what  the  Life  Insurance  contract  is,  how  it  has  to  be 
made,  and  its  relation  to  these  securities:  Life  Insur- 
ance contracts  are  in  reality  a  type  of  serial  non-interest 
bearing  bonds.  They  mature  daily  through  drawings. 
The  drawing  is  done  by  Death,  but  the  process  is 
essentially  the  same  as  that  followed  in  serial  bond 
issues  where  the  drawings  are  made  from  an  urn. 
Bonds  of  States,  Counties  and  Municipalities,  running 
for  a  definite  period,  or  due  serially,  usually  have  a 
sinking  fund  provision,  and  the  sinking  fund  and 
interest  are  provided  for  by  public  taxation.  These 
life  insurance  bonds  also  have  a  sinking  fund  pro- 
vision, a  very  strict  one,  and  these  provisions  are  also 
met  by  taxation,  by  private  taxation. 

The  Life  Insurance  Premium,  outside  the  factor 
which  represents  endowment  insurance,  is  a  tax  as 
clearly  and  unequivocally  as  that  form  of  contribution 
to  the  public  exchequer  which  we  call  the  Income  Tax. 
Here,  however,  the  analogy  between  Government 
bonds  and  the  Life  Insurance  contract  ends. 

These  civic  subdivisions  of  the  nation  have  prac- 
tically unlimited  capacity  to  meet  their  bond  obhga- 
tions  through  taxation.  If  the  rate  of  tax  fails  to 
produce  the  annual  interest  charge  and  the  proper 
annual  addition  to  sinking  funds,  the  rate  can  be  raised 


396  Other  Addresses 

and  new  sources  of  revenue  created  through  new  and 
different  taxation.  Not  so  with  the  Life  Companies. 
Their  obUgations  are  fixed  except  as  they  are  increased 
by  forces  beyond  their  control  while  their  power  to  tax 
is  strictly  limited.  They  are  obliged  to  state  in  ad- 
vance in  contracts  that  may  mature  to-morrow  or  in 
sixty  years  or  more,  just  what  the  purchaser  is  to  pay 
yearly,  or  half-yearly,  or  even  weekly.  That  figure 
cannot  under  any  circumstances  be  increased,  not  even 
in  times  of  war.  Within  recent  weeks  hundreds  of 
inquiries  have  come  to  the  Home  Offices  of  the  Com- 
panies asking  whether  the  Companies  would  now  put 
a  war  clause  in  outstanding  policies.  The  Companies 
cannot  cross  a  "t"  or  dot  an  "i"  in  contracts  out- 
standing. The  extra  mortality  of  war  and  the  in- 
creased cost  of  labor  and  supplies  must  be  covered  by 
the  premiums  fixed  when  the  contracts  were  made. 

In  fixing  this  premium  the  Life  Companies  have  to 
make  very  broad  and  far-reaching  assumptions  as  to 
what  will  happen  in  the  world  of  business  to-morrow 
and  the  next  day  and  so  on  during  the  life  of  the  con- 
tracts, some  of  which  will  run  for  many  years.  In 
fixing  the  annual  charge  the  Companies  first  adopt  a 
table  of  mortality.  That  with  relative  definiteness 
declares  how  many  of  these  bonds  will  be  drawn 
yearly,  and  experience  now  pretty  conclusively  shows 
that  these  maturities  do  not  even  in  war-times  exceed 
the  provisions  of  the  mortality  tables.  These  are  mat- 
ters with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do  here,  and  are 
stated  because  they  are  a  part  of  the  general  plan. 
The  mortality  tables  are  now  confirmed  by  vast  experi- 
ence, are  used  by  all  the  Companies,  and  are  sound.* 

*The  recent  influenza  epidemic  perhaps  indicates  that  these  tables 
may  yet  need  revision. 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        397 

The  Companies  next  assume  a  rate  of  interest,  and 
that  brings  the  pecuUar  relation  between  the  Railroads 
and  the  Life  Companies  directly  into  this  discussion. 
They  assume  that  the  proceeds  of  these  private  taxes,  or 
premiums,  can  be  invested  to  earn  a  minimum  rate  of 
interest  through  long  periods  of  time.  In  doing  this 
the  Companies  are  obliged  to  assume  that  public  faith 
will  be  kept  and  private  credit  will  be  sound.  Starting 
with  these  assumptions  it  is  not  difficult  for  an  Actuary 
to  tell  just  what  sums  must  be  set  aside  annually,  if 
increased  by  the  rate  of  interest  assumed,  to  provide 
the  funds  to  redeem  these  serial  maturities.  The 
Companies  then  add  to  this  percentage  for  expenses 
and  other  contingencies.  But  the  mortahty  tables 
show  that  the  number  of  drawings  increases  rapidly 
with  advancing  age  of  the  bondholder,  and  as  the  Com- 
panies, in  all  the  types  of  insurance  involved  in  this 
discussion,  propose  to  tax  the  man  the  same  amount 
annually  per  $1,000  at  age  80  that  was  required  at 
age  15,  if  he  entered  then,  the  reserve,  or  sinking  funds, 
must  be  sufficient  to  cover  that  period  of  the  contract 
when  by  reason  of  increased  age  the  demands  on  the 
Companies  through  maturities  outrun  the  premiums. 
In  short  the  bondholder  in  youth  pays  more  than  the 
mortality  of  youth  requires  in  order  to  provide  funds 
against  the  time  when  on  account  of  age  his  annual 
contribution  will  be  inadequate.  This  explains  in  part 
why  the  reserves  of  the  Companies  run  into  such  large 
figures.  But  total  assets  of  $5,700,000,000  against  face 
obligations  of  $25,000,000,000  does  not  look  dispro- 
portionate even  to  a  layman.  The  two  factors  which 
make  it  possible  for  that  $5,700,000,000  ultimately  to 
meet  obligations  aggregating  $25,000,000,000,  are  fu- 

27 


398  Other  Addresses 

ture  premiums  and  interest.  The  report  of  the  Insur- 
ance Department  of  the  State  of  New  York  at  the 
close  of  1915  shows  that  the  Life  Companies  reporting 
there,  which  of  course  does  not  include  all  the  Life 
Companies  in  the  United  States,  collected  in  the  cal- 
endar year  $212,000,000  in  interest  and  di\4dends,  ex- 
clusive of  rents.  Since  organization  American  Life 
Companies  had  collected  up  to  the  close  of  1915,  in 
interest,  dividends  and  rents,  over  $3,500,000,000. 
This  is  approximately  60%  of  their  present  assets 
Broadly  speaking,  it  was  all  necessary  to  make  good 
the  original  assumptions  as  to  interest,  although 
there  has  been  always  a  margin  and  there  always 
must  be. 

Here  then  are  two  factors  which  lie  at  the  basis  of 
the  structure  of  Life  Insurance,  factors  that  must  be 
cardinal  considerations  in  this  discussion : 

1st.  Future  obhgations  that  are  to  be  met  by  a  level 
premium  fixed  in  advance  and  as  against  all 
contingencies. 

2d.  An  assumed  rate  of  interest  running  far  into  the 
future. 

Of  these  two,  the  second,  for  our  discussion  to-day,  is 
much  the  more  important  because  while  the  Companies 
cannot  in  any  circumstances  raise  their  premium,  or 
rate  of  tax,  as  soon  as  the  bondholder  fails  to  make  his 
annual,  or  semi-annual,  or  weekly  contribution,  the 
Company's  liabilitj-  on  that  particular  contract  changes 
and  it  is  automatically  protected.  Not  so  with  the 
interest  factor;  that  must  be  earned  or  the  whole  struc- 
ture is  threatened.  Interest  is  assumed  to  be  constant 
on  all  the  money  in  the  sinking  fund.     No  allowance 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        399 

is  made  for  any  default.  Acting  within  the  law  the 
reserves  of  most  of  the  Companies  reporting  to  the 
New  York  Department  are  calculated  on  the  assump- 
tion they  will  earn  33^%  and  the  State  will  compel  a 
Company  to  cease  issuing  new  contracts  whenever  its 
assets  do  not  cover  its  liabilities,  assuming  that  it  will 
earn  4K%.  It  would  appear  that  here  is  margin 
enough,  and  that  is  true  if  certain  other  assumptions 
made  by  the  Companies  do  not  fail.  The  Companies 
have  to  assume  not  merely  the  factors  that  enter  into 
its  premium  rate,  but,  equally  vital,  that  securities  can 
always  be  had  so  sound  and  dependable  that  they  wall 
yield  the  rate  of  interest  assumed  and  in  addition  will 
produce  the  principal  invested  whenever  desired,  or  at 
maturity  if  bearing  a  fixed  maturity  date.  The  Com- 
panies' obligations  do  not  shift  with  time  and  circum- 
stance, except  as  premium  payments  fail  or  contracts 
mature  or  are  surrendered ;  but  its  invested  funds  from 
which  it  is  largely  to  meet  those  liabilities  are  open  to 
all  the  assaults  that  lie  in  shifting  economic  conditions. 
Securities  rated  by  experts  as  sound  to-day  are  some- 
times valueless  in  a  few  years.  The  Life  Companies 
buy  and  must  buy  what  every  careful  investor  buys. 
In  adopting  a  level  tax,  or  premium,  for  long  periods 
the  Companies  are  obliged  to  assume  that  through  all 
that  time  commercial  faith  will  be  kept,  that  sound 
and  necessary  enterprises  will  be  fostered  bj'  society,  and 
that  the  State  which  so  sternly  supervises  the  Companies,  so 
strictly  measures  their  liabilities,  and  so  carefidly  values 
their  assets,  ivill  use  the  same  power  to  see  that  the  faith 
that  lies  back  of  these  securities  is  also  kept. 

In  two  particulars  the  state,  meaning  the  Federal 
Government,  and  the  states,  meaning  the  members  of 


400  Other  Addresses 

the  Federal  Union,  have  taken  action  that  directly 
affects  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  the  Companies: 

1st.  Through  taxation  which  weakens  the  assump- 
tions. 

2d.  Through  supervisory  bodies  Uke  this,  having  the 
power  to  regulate  and  limit  the  earnings  of 
public  carriers  which  would  strengthen  the  as- 
sumptions. 

Consider  the  matter  of  taxation.  Of  course  every 
dollar  taken  from  Life  Insurance  Companies  by  the 
state,  or  the  states,  is  an  expense  not  covered  by  the 
Companies'  fundamental  assumption  and  therefore  must 
come  out  of  the  loading  for  contingencies  which  is  also 
unchangeable  or  out  of  other  savings  which  are  about 
as  likely  to  decrease  as  to  increase.  It  is  a  tax  on  a  tax, 
and  while  I  appreciate  that  this  is  not  a  body  having 
to  do  with  taxes,  it  is  a  co-ordinate  branch  of  Govern- 
ment and  is  bound  to  take  cognizance  of  other  Govern- 
mental action.  These  taxes  now  total  $15,000,000 
more  or  less  a  year  and  are  steadily  rising.  Recent  leg- 
islation has  put  mutual  insurance,  which  is  not  a  busi- 
ness enterprise  at  all,  has  no  profits  and  in  the  nature 
of  things  can  have  none,  in  the  category  with  munition 
makers.  Taxation  is  an  increasingly  serious  factor  in 
the  Companies'  balance  sheets.  It  is  quite  within  the 
realm  of  things  possible  that  this  tax  will  rise  to  $30,- 
000,000  a  year  at  no  distant  date.  Against  this  extra- 
ordinary and  increasing  demand  the  Companies  have 
no  protection.  They  constantly  eat  into  the  margins 
saved  by  economies  in  management,  savings  in  mor- 
tality, and  savings  in  interest. 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        401 

Life  Insurance  in  a  word  faces  increasing  obligations 
which  it  does  not  create,  which  it  cannot  control. 
These  demands  are  additional  to  those  named  in  the 
life  contract  itself  and  must  be  met  from  revenues  that 
are  substantially  fixed.  The  situation  obviously  be- 
comes at  once  extremely  uncomfortable  if  we  add  to 
these  expenditures  any  failure  in  the  Companies' 
fundamental  assumptions. 

This  body  has  the  power  to  fix  the  rates  charged  by 
the  Railroads  having  to  do  with  Interstate  Commerce. 
The  greater  part. of  the  investments  under  discussion 
was  made  before  your  honorable  bod^^  was  granted,  or  at 
least  before  it  exercised,  its  present  powers.  You  there- 
fore inherit  a  condition  which  makes  the  integrity  of 
these  46,000,000  contracts  a  part  of  your  duty. 

//  a  denial  of  the  prayer  of  the  roads  for  an  increase  in 
rates  at  this  time  will  carry  the  relation  between  the  rail- 
roads and  the  Life  Insurance  companies  into  a  doubtful 
zone  and  even  remotely  assail  the  assumptions  as  to  in- 
terest which  the  Companies  have  made  and  imperil  the 
capital  which  they  have  invested,  then  we  assume  that 
this  body  is  as  clearly  bound  to  grant  that  request  in  the 
interest  of  public  faith  and  commercial  integrity  as  it  is 
bound  to  end  exorbitant  or  discriminatory  charges. 

It  is  not  my  part  to  go  into  the  statistics  of  this 
problem.  The  facts  and  figures  are  all  before  you 
now.  I  know  no  more  about  that  than  any  other  non- 
railroad  man.  I  am  here  to  reflect,  and  I  think  I  do 
reflect,  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the  men  who  are 
responsible  as  Trustees  for  investments  aggregating 
nearly  $6,000,000,000,  of  which  Railroad  securities 
represent  2b%. 


402  Other  Addresses 

I  speak  directly,  and  by  authority,  on  behalf  of  five 
great  Companies  which  together  own  75%  of  the  total 
railroad  holdings  of  all  the  Companies.  They  have 
steadily  lost  faith  in  what  was  at  one  time  a  favorite 
investment.  The  per  cent,  which  expresses  the  rela- 
tion between  their  holding  of  railroad  secm-ities  and 
their  ledger  assets  has  declined  within  ten  years.  In 
the  case  of  the  largest  single  holder  this  per  cent,  in  the 
year  1904  was  55.1%  and  in  1916  it  was  38%. 

"\^Tlat  conditions  explain  this  attitude? 

Into  the  judgment  which  has  made  these  investors 
draw  away  from  Railroad  secm-ities  the  product  of 
three  tests  or  conditions  have  entered.     These  are: 

The  Factor  of  Safety; 

The  mean  market  price  of  a  selected  group  of  bonds; 
and 

Defaults. 

The  Finance  or  Investing  Committees  generally 
apply  to  a  Railroad  bond  offering,  the  test  of  Safety. 
What  is  the  bond's  Factor  of  Safety?  If  it  is  unsatis- 
factory, the  offering  is  not  considered  further. 

In  addition  the  Companies — most  of  them  I  think — 
periodically  apply  this  test  to  their  entire  holdings. 
Applied  through  a  period  of  years  to  the  holdings  of 
one  Company,  the  largest  single  holder  of  Railroad 
bonds,  the  test  3'ields  these  results: 

FACTOR  OF  SAFETY 


Close  of  1912 204  issues.. 

Close  of  1913 217  issues.. 

Close  of  1914 236  issues. . 

Close  of  1915 238  issues.. 

Close  of  1916 2.32  issues.. 


average  factor  73 
"      70.8 
"       65.1 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        403 

It  is  not  difficult  therefore  to  understand  why  this 
particular  Company,  which  in  1902  invested  117.3% 
of  its  entire  increase  in  assets  that  year  in  Railroad 
bonds,  invested  in  long  time  bonds  only  33^%  of  such 
increase  in  1913. 

This  test  runs  parallel  with  what  is  common  know- 
ledge. 

Nineteen  sixteen  is  generally  known  to  have  been  an 
abnormally  good  year  with  nearly  all  the  Roads.  The 
improved  net  earnings  of  the  j^ear  lifted  this  Companj^'s 
Factor  of  Safety  nearly  sixteen  points  above  1914. 

For  a  period  of  years  the  second  test  has  yielded 
similar  results. 

The  mean  market  price  of  twenty-five  selected  bond 
issues  decHned  steadily  from  97.25  in  1909  to  86.92  in 
1915.  The  price  improved  materially  in  1916  but  is 
now  lower  than  the  mean  price  of  1915. 

By  itself  a  considerable  fall  in  the  market  price  of 
these  bonds  may  mean  little.  The  earning  power  of 
money  fluctuates  and  market  prices  vary  correspond- 
ingly. The  bonds  are  bought  to  yield  a  rate  of  interest 
and  are  usually  carried  to  maturity.  Unless  the  mar- 
ket price  meantime  reflects  weakness  in  the  security,  it 
is  of  little  importance  in  the  Companies'  calculations. 
But  when  along  with  faUing  market  prices  and  a 
shrinking  Factor  of  Safety  come  such  defaults  as  are 
recorded  in  the  story  of  the  last  nine  years  the  attitude 
of  these  and  other  investors  is  easily  understood. 

The  Directors  of  a  Life  Company  may  have  to  face 
problems  here  before  default  occurs.  Under  the  laws 
of  New  York  the  Companies  must  value  any  par- 
ticular issue  at  market,  in  making  its  return  to  the 
State,  whenever  the  Superintendent  of  Insurance  de- 


404  Other  Addresses 

cides  that  it  is  inadequately  secured.  The  difference 
is  charged  to  profit  and  loss  and  increases  the  cost  of 
insurance  for  the  whole  Company  to  that  extent. 

On  January  1,  1916,  the  market  value  of  the  group 
of  Railroad  bonds  under  consideration  was  $107,000,000 
below  amortized  value. 

Taking  up  the  third  test,  we  find  that  within  nine 
years  Railroad  bonds  of  a  par  value  of  S844,534,000 
have  defaulted  their  interest  and  that  the  amount  of 
interest  in  cumulative  default  July  1,  1916,  was 
$82,000,000.  The  year  1916  seemed  to  forecast  a 
complete  and  permanent  change  in  the  situation. 

But  now  the  Roads — many  of  them  at  least — face 
new  and  what  seem  to  be  even  graver  problems.  Like 
the  increasing  taxes  on  Life  Insurance  there  now  comes 
to  the  Roads  an  almost  perpendicular  raise  in  the  cost 
of  labor,  material  and  equipment,  and  in  addition  the 
as  yet  indeterminable  costs  of  war. 

Recent  monthly  returns  from  some  of  the  great 
systems  indicate  that  the  margins  of  1916  \vill  not  be 
maintained  or  approached  in  1917.  Except  in  your 
discretion  rates  are  inflexible  as  against  these  rising 
demands. 

The  factor  of  safety  which  was  none  too  high  at  the 
close  of  1916  is  already  receding  and  will  continue  to 
recede  unless  the  Roads  have  relief.  Standing  at  65 
the  Factor  applied  to  these  seasoned  and  carefully 
selected  bonds  obviously  indicated  great  danger  to 
Railroad  securities  as  a  whole.  In  the  first  six  months 
of  that  year — 1914 — Railroad  bonds  aggregating  at 
par  over  .$291,636,000  defaulted  on  nearly  $11,000,000 
of  interest.  Some  of  the  defaulting  bonds  were  in  the 
vaults  of  the  Life  Companies,  but  not  many. 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        405 

Look  through  the  Life  Companies'  sworn  reports  to 
the  State  of  New  York  at  the  close  of  1916  and  you 
will  find  that  they  now  buy  few  junior  bonds  except 
where  the  road  is  paying  substantial  returns  on  its 
stock.  The  law  of  New  York  State  no  longer  allows 
them  to  buy  stocks  or  debentures,  or  collateral  trust 
bonds  except  under  certain  conditions.  They  confine 
themselves,  and  largely  from  choice,  to  underlying 
bonds,  which  of  course  means  that  in  any  new  financing 
of  the  Roads  the  old  market  for  the  securities  which 
represent  that  financing,  is  gone.  It  does  not  take  a 
railroad  expert  to  understand  that  an  equipment  trust 
to-day  representing  80%  of  cost,  when  that  cost  is 
nearly  twice  what  it  was  a  few  years  ago  is  not  a  good 
investment  unless  it  appears  that  there  has  been  a 
corresponding  increase  in  the  earning  power  of  the 
equipment  itself.  An  inevitable  question  springing 
from  that  conclusion  is:  What  effect  will  the  present 
startling  advance  in  cost  not  only  of  equipment,  but 
of  labor  and  coal  and  other  items  of  upkeep  have  on 
the  outstanding  securities  of  the  Roads  unless  their 
rates  which  are  now  about  as  rigid  as  Life  Insurance 
premiums,  can  be  modified  to  meet  changed  or  emer- 
gency conditions? 

If  a  Road  is  to  serve  the  country  effectively  it  must 
be  able  to  finance  itself.  To  sell  its  securities  to  Life 
Insurance  Companies  hereafter  a  Railroad  must  show 
that  its  revenues  are  sufficient  to  cover  depreciation, 
upkeep,  interest,  amortization,  and  a  reasonable  sur- 
plus after  paying  the  stockholder  a  fair  return  on  his 
money.  When  the  present  holdings  of  the  Life  Com- 
panies were  purchased,  barring  possibly  the  under- 
lying obligations  of  some  Roads,  these  conditions  gen- 


406  Other  Addresses 

erally  existed.  What  is  the  condition  now?  How 
many  roads  can  finance  themselves  to  any  consider- 
able extent  through  the  sale  of  stock?  How  many 
indeed  from  their  present  indicated  net  earnings  will 
be  able  to  pay  any  return  to  stockholders  in  1918  if 
the  properties  are  well  kept  up? 

Having  spoken  so  frankly,  it  seems  wise,  to  avoid 
misunderstanding,  that  I  should  say  a  word  more. 
The  facts  are  as  I  have  stated  them,  but  while,  unless 
remedied,  they  threaten  loss  to  the  Companies  they 
do  not  threaten  disaster.  It  is  in  part  to  avoid  the 
future  possibility  of  that  I  have  spoken  so  freely  to-day. 
These  Companies  for  which  I  speak  not  only  seek  safety 
but  as  they  furnish  this  mutual  protection  at  cost  they 
aim  to  reach  the  lowest  net  cost.  That  they  are 
bound  to  do.  Every  million  dollars  paid  in  taxes, 
every  million  dollars  in  defaulted  interest,  every  million 
dollars  shrinkage  in  principal,  goes  into  profit  and  loss 
and  by  that  much  increases  the  cost  of  insurance. 

Life  Insurance  Directors  do  not  expect  to  invest 
billions  and  keep  them  invested  for  long  periods  with- 
out some  losses.  But  they  do  believe  that  when  the 
Federal  Government  placed — and  properly  placed — in 
your  hands  the  power  to  regulate  and  supervise  these 
Roads  and  the  power  to  fix  their  rates,  it  assumed  a 
responsibility  toward  the  people  we  serve,  so  clear  and 
compeUing  that  our  losses  in  this  group  of  securities 
ought  to  be  less  than  in  any  other  group  of  securities 
outside  Government  and  State  bonds. 

One  word  on  the  strictly  human  side. 

I  speak  for  about  33,000,000  investors;  and  here 
again  we  must  discriminate.  Ninety  per  cent.. of  that 
vast  number  are  in  such  financial  condition  that  they 


American  Life  Insurance  and  Railroads        407 

do  not  know  that  they  have  a  dollar  invested  in  any- 
thing. Acting  separately  few  of  that  great  number 
would  to-day  own  or  have  an  interest  in  any  security. 
In  its  usual  significance  therefore  the  word  "investor" 
does  not  apply  to  any  of  these  people.  The  real  in- 
vestor has  money  otherwise  idle;  he  buys  a  bond,  or 
shares  of  stock,  or  a  farm,  or  an  interest  in  a  business. 
He  invests  and  takes  the  risk  of  gain  or  loss.  These 
33,000,000  people  (even  those  having  means)  do  noth- 
ing of  that  kind  when  they  insure  their  lives.  They 
mutually  agree  to  submit  to  a  tax  for  a  definite  social 
purpose;  they  are  not  seeking  profits;  they  are  not  in 
business;  they  are  mutually  capitalizing  the  future 
earning  power  of  their  lives,  the  capital  to  become 
available  as  drawings  are  made  by  the  grim  laws  of 
mortality.  To  do  that  scientifically  these  reserves  are 
necessary  and  the  reserves  must  be  invested,  but  the 
men  who  pay  the  taxes  agreed  to  are  scarcely  more 
investors  than  are  the  men  who  donate  funds  to  col- 
leges, hospitals  and  orphan  asylums.  Such  funds  must 
be  invested,  but  the  beneficiaries  of  these  donations 
are  not  investors  unless  perchance  a  man  who  founds  a 
hospital  and  goes  there  to  die  may  be  called  an  investor. 
The  insured  pays  his  tax  because  of  the  strong  prob- 
ability that  his  family  otherwise  may  be  left  defence- 
less. The  man  who  pays  the  tax  wins  nothing  for 
himself  even  if  his  bond  is  drawn  early — except  a 
sense  of  self-respect  and  comfort  meantime. 

By  this  device  33,000,000  people  have  erected  a 
great  sociological  plant  which  in  turn  has  become  a 
great  investor.  They  have  mobilized  the  single  dollars 
and  the  ten  cent  pieces.  They  have  assembled  money 
otherwise  naturally  ineffective,  unrelated,  possibly  even 


408  Other  Addresses 

hostile,  and  thereby,  and  properly  as  a  by-product, 
they  now  indirectly  own  one-tenth  of  all  the  financial 
obligations  of  all  the  Railroads;  they  have  helped  to 
build  up  great  cities  through  mortgage  loans;  they 
have  financed  public  improvements  through  municipal 
bonds;  they  have  financed  the  farmer  through  farm 
loans;  and  are  now  about  to  pour  millions  into  the 
United  States  Treasury  in  the  purchase  of  Government 
bonds. 

These  33,000,000  people  have  trusted  the  Directors 
of  their  enterprises  completely.  That  is  a  very  im- 
portant economic  fact.  That  faith  must  be  kept.  The 
Directors  in  turn  have  founded  their  structure  on 
certain  assumptions  that  are  absolutely  sound,  if  pubhc 
faith  is  kept. 

I  am  here,  therefore,  not  to  plead  for  the  private 
investor,  although  I  know  of  no  good  reason  why  an 
honest  investor,  a  holder  of  Railroad  bonds,  even  a 
holder  of  Railroad  stocks,  is  not  entitled  to  a  fair 
return  on  a  naturally  sound  investment. 

The  people  for  whom  I  speak  had  no  money  to 
invest,  sought  no  investment,  and,  as  insurants,  have 
now  no  title  to  any  specific  bond  or  share  of  stock. 
They  have  contractual  rights  and  that  is  all. 

Having  been  granted  and  having  assumed  the  power 
to  regulate  these  public  carriers  and  to  fix  their  rates, 
it  follows  that  in  all  cases  where  Insurance  Directors 
have  bought  Railroad  Securities  with  sound  judgment, 
your  duty  to  use  your  power  to  protect  the  integrity 
of  these  securities  is  akin  at  least  to  the  duty  of  the 
Government  to  protect  the  fives  and  liberties  of  the 
people. 


PRESIDENT   KINGSLEY'S   STEWARDSHIP 


MEMORANDUM  TO  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS 

ON  THE  10th  ANNIVERSARY  OF  HIS  ELECTION  AS  PRESIDENT  OF  THE 

NEW    YORK    LIFE    INSURANCE    COMPANY,    JUNE    17.   1917. 

TEN    YEARS   AGAINST   SIXTY-TWO.       A    SOLID 

FOUNDATION    AND    A   TOWERING 

SUPERSTRUCTURE 


T  SEEMS  to  me  appropriate  to-day  for  a 
number  of  reasons  that,  in  expressing  the 
appreciation  felt  by  my  associate  officers 
and  myself  over  this  renewed  e\'idence  of 
your  confidence,  I  should  point  out  some 
significant  facts  which  have  developed  during  the  ten 
years  of  the  existence  of  what  may  be  called  the  pres- 
ent administration. 

When  this  Board  ten  years  ago,  within  a  few 
days,  chose  me  as  President  of  the  New  York  Life, 
I  re\'iewed  the  situation  of  the  Company  and  of  life 
insurance  as  I  saw  it  and  stated  that  I  believed  that 
size  in  life  insurance  would  ultimately  prove  to  be  an 
advantage,  not  merely  because  size  means  strength 
and  permanency  but  size  means  economy. 

On  the  intervening  occasions  on  which  you  have 
re-elected  my  associates  and  myself,  I  have  touched  on 
some  of  these  facts  so  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  to 
repeat  them  now.  But  you  will  probably  be  surprised 
yourselves  when  I  tell  you  that  in  fundamentals  as 
much  work  has  been  done,  and  as  much  has  been 
accomplished,   in   those  ten  years  as  was  done  and 

409 


410  Other  Addresses 

accomplished  in  the  previous  sixty-two  years  of  the 
Company's  life. 

Divide  the  history  of  the  Company  into  two  periods; 
include  in  the  first  the  work  and  the  accomplishments 
from  1845  to  1906  inclusive,  and  in  the  second  the 
record  and  work  from  1907  to  1916  inclusive,  and  we 
get  some  rather  startling  results: 

The  Company's  total  receipts  from  1845  to 

1906  inclusive,  were  in  round  figures  ....  §1,250,000,000 
The  Company's  total  receipts  from  1907  to 

1916  inclusive,  were  in  round  figures  ....     1,177,000,000 

Total  disbursements  in  the  first  period 783,000,000 

Total  disbursements  in  the  second  period .  . .        768,000,000 
Total  payments  to  policv-holders  in  the  first 

period ": 540,000,000 

This  includes  §89,000,000  in  dividends. 
Total  pavments    to    policy-holders   in    the 

second"  period 616,000,000 

Of  which  8120,000,000  were  dividends. 
Total  expenses  and  taxes  of  the  Company 

1845-1906  inclusive 236,000,000 

Total  expenses  and  taxes  of  the  Company 

1907-1916  inclusive 127,000,000 

Less  in  the  second  period  by 
over  .§100,000,000. 
The  total  of  taxes,  hcenses  and  fees  paid  in 

the  first  62  years  was 12,386,000 

The  total  of  taxes,  licenses  and  fees  paid  in 

the  last  ten  years  was 12,697,000 

The  excess  of  §300,000  is  accounted  for 
in  large  part  by  the  constantly  increas- 
ing rate  of  taxation. 
At  the  close  of  1906  the  ledger  assets  of  the 
Company  at  book  value    (which  is  the 
value  used  for  dividends)  amounted  to  . .        466,000,000 
The  earning  power  of  which  was  4.299c- 

That  earning  power  without  anj^  serious  fluctuation 
rose  up  to  the  close  of  1913,  fell  off  a  Httle  in  1914  and 
1915,  and  at  the  close  of  1916  stood  at  4.54%. 

On  the  first  of  May,  1917,  it  was  4.54%. 

The  ledger  assets  of  the  Company  on  the  first  of 
May,  1917,  were  $899,000,000,  almost  exactly  double 


President  Kingsley's  Stewardship  411 

what  they  were  at  the  end  of  sixty-two  years,  and 
their  earning  power  was  still  4.54%.  The  difference 
between  the  earning  power  of  the  Company's  assets  at 
the  close  of  1906  and  their  earning  power  at  the  close 
of  1916  is  exactly  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent.  Ap- 
plied to  the  ledger  assets  of  the  Company  on  the  first 
of  May,  the  interest  earnings  for  the  year  ending 
May  1,  1918,  if  that  rate  is  maintained,  will  be 
$2,224,000  more  than  they  would  have  been  at  the 
rate  recorded  at  the  close  of  1906. 

During  the  past  ten  years,  counting  from  the  begin- 
ning of  1907,  the  Company  invested  in  bonds  and  in 
loans  on  real  estate  $461,000,000  to  pay  an  average  of 
4.81%.  In  1913  the  investments  were  $41,000,000  to 
pay  5.07%,  in  1915  $36,000,000  to  pay  5.13%,  and  in 
1916  $70,000,000  to  pay  5.26%:  the  largest  sum,  so 
far  as  I  can  find  from  our  records,  ever  invested  by 
the  Company  in  a  single  year,  with  the  largest  rate  of 
return,  within  any  time  of  which  we  have  authentic 
information. 

The  rate  of  mortalitj-  in  1916  was  71%  of  the  ex- 
pected, the  lowest  rate  experienced  by  the  Company 
since  it  began  the  preparation  of  a  gain  and  loss  ac- 
count about  twenty  years  ago. 

During  the  past  ten  years  the  Company  has  gained 
from  the  three  great  sources  of  surplus:  interest,  mor- 
tality and  loading,  as  follows: 

From  interest $114,000,000 

From  mortality 56,000,000 

From  loading 64,000,000 

The  gain  in  the  year  1916  was  $30,000,000. 
The  limitation  on  new  business  fixed  by  the  statutes 
of  New  York  still  rested  heavily  upon  us  when  I  was 


412  Other  Addresses 

first  elected  President,  so  much  so  that  the  outstand- 
ing business  of  the  Company,  then  decreasing,  con- 
tinued to  decrease  and  reached  its  lowest  point  in  the  year 
1908.  Since  then  we  have  succeeded  in  getting  modi- 
fications of  the  law  so  that  for  the  last  half-dozen 
years  we  have  been  able  to  write  all  the  business  we 
cared  to  write.  The  European  war  cut  off  about 
$35,000,000  new  business  a  year.  Notwithstanding  all 
these  handicaps,  the  business  paid  for  in  these  ten 
years  is  one-third  of  all  the  business  the  Company  has 
paid  for  in  seventy-two  years.  It  totals  approximately 
$2,000,000,000. 

A  curious  fact  which  has  come  out  from  the  study  of 
these  figures  is  that  the  total  income  of  the  Company 
during  its  existence  is  just  a  little  less  than  its  present 
total  outstanding  insurance.  So  far  as  I  know  there  is 
no  natural  relation  between  the  two  facts,  but  that  the 
Company  has  received  nearly  $2,500,000,000  since 
organization  and  has  in  securities  now  less  than 
$900,000,000  goes  far  toward  answering  the  not  un- 
natural question  that  people  sometimes  ask  about 
what  the  Company  does  with  all  the  money. 

There  are  few  types  of  institutions  in  which  money 
is  more  fluid  and  active  than  in  a  life  insurance  com- 
pany aggressively  conducted.  The  securities  in  the 
Company's  vault  may  seem  to  be,  and  in  fact  may  be, 
static  in  their  character.  But  in  the  lives  of  the  people 
throughout  the  organization  of  the  institution  all  over 
the  world,  the  transactions  of  the  Company  keep  its 
money  through  payments  to  policy-holders,  interest 
and  other  avenues,  in  a  constant  condition  of  activity. 
In  fact  referring  to  the  usefulness  of  money  as  a  circu- 
lating medium,  I  question  whether  any  money  held  by 


President  Kingsley's  Stewardship  413 

any  type  of  institution  is  more  completely  fluid  and 
active.  The  nearly  nine  hundred  millions  in  the  Com- 
pany's vault  are  represented  merely  by  instruments 
recording  obligations  and  promises  to  pay.  There  is 
never  any  considerable  sum  of  actual  cash  in  the  Com- 
pany's vaults,  and  the  actual  cash  in  the  Company's 
depositories  is  only  such  as  is  necessary  in  the  process 
of  investment  for  the  Company  to  maintain  itself  in  a 
stable  condition. 

Four  days  ago  I  reached  my  sixtieth  j^ar.  I  have 
served  the  Company  for  nearly  twenty-nine  years. 
Vice-President  Weeks  has  served  the  Company  fifty 
years;  Vice-President  Buckner,  thirty-seven  years; 
Treasurer  Shipman,  twenty-four  years;  Second  Vice- 
President  McCall,  eighteen  years;  Second  Vice-Presi- 
dent Buckner,  thirty-two  years;  Secretary  Ballard, 
twenty-four  years.  Your  Executive  Officers  com- 
bined represent  two  hundred  and  fourteen  years  of 
ser\'ice. 

Time  will  not  be  denied,  yet  none  of  us  concedes 
that  he  is  old.  Serving  in  so  worthy  a  cause,  under 
such  confidence  and  sympathy  as  you  extend  to  us  not 
only  adds  to  the  joy  of  service  but  robs  age  of  its 
terrors. 

On  the  occasion  of  my  first  election  as  President,  I 
think  I  stated  that  I  was  one  of  the  few  men  who  had 
had  the  rare  experience  of  reaching  the  very  height  of 
his  ambition.  I  have  enjoyed  that  peculiar  sensation 
for  ten  years.  It  is  a  sensation  that  not  very  many 
men  are  ever  privileged  to  feel.  That  may  be  because 
most  men  are  never  satisfied,  but  most  men  I  think 
would  be  satisfied  with  the  Presidency  of  the  New 
York  Life. 

28 


MEMORIAL  TO 
MAJOR  JOHN  PURROY  MITCHEL,  U.  S.  R. 


ADOPTED  BY  THE 

CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE  STATE 

OF  NEW  YORK.  JULY  18,  1918 


HE  outstanding  quality  in  the  personality 
of  Alexander  Hamilton  was  youth — aggres- 
sive, invincible  youth. 

The  outstanding  quality  that  distin- 
guished the  personality  of  John  Purroy 
Mitchel,  to  whose  memory  this  Minute  is  a  tribute, 
was  youth — youth  unafraid,  unconquerable. 

Dead  before  thirty-nine,  John  Purroy  Mitchel  had 
lived  more  than  most  men  whose  years  span  the  Biblical 
measure.  His  public  service,  which  covered  substan- 
tially all  his  adult  hfe,  was  given  almost  exclusively  to 
this  City,  and  was  so  distinguished  that  it  will  stand 
out  masterfully  in  New  York's  history:  he  had,  in  fact, 
become  a  national  figure.  Nevertheless,  he  was  young 
— younger  than  his  years.  There  was  about  him  alwaj- s 
the  spirit  of  sheer  youth.  His  triumphs  were  the 
triumphs  of  youth.  His  failures  were  the  failures  of 
youth.  He  inherited  from  some  great  ancestor  certain 
knightly  qualities  which  made  him  at  all  times  a  gal- 
lant figure — a  personality  of  which  the  City  was  proud. 
The  war  is  brought  very  near  to  all  of  us  when  we 
realize  that  the  two  great  Americans  who,  for  us  and 
for  New  York,  spoke  so  eloquently  when  Jofifre  was 


Memorial  to  Major  John  Purroy  Mitchel       415 

our  guest,  when  Balfour  was  our  guest — Joseph  H. 
Choate  and  John  Purroy  Mitchel — are  both  dead: 
Choate,  the  old  man  eloquent;  Mitchel,  the  young  man 
militant. 

When  Mayor  Mitchel  spoke  at  the  great  dinner 
given  by  the  City  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  jointly  to 
the  French  and  British  Commissions,  did  he  sub- 
consciously foresee  his  own  tragic  end?    He  said: 

"Gentlemen  of  England  and  of  France:  Our 
President,  speaking  for  every  loyal  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  has  pledged  to  you  the  resources 
of  the  United  States.  Money,  ships,  munitions, 
food — these  things  we  give  you  freely  and  esteem 
the  giving  but  a  light  tax  upon  our  unbounded 
wealth.  It  is  not  enough.  There  lacks  the  critical 
contribution  of  manhood  service,  and  blood  sacri- 
fice. This,  too,  must  be  ours.  Our  duty  will  be 
done,  our  debts  discharged,  our  destiny  achieved, 
only  when  the  hosts  of  American  democracy  take 
their  place  beside  the  hosts  of  England  and  of 
France,  resolved  to  fight  and  fight  and  still  to 
fight,  until  victory  rescues  the  world  from  autocracy 
and  barbarism." 

It  is  not  our  part  to  discuss  the  forces  that  buffeted 
John  Purroy  Mitchel  until  that  July  morning  when  he 
fell  from  the  sky  to  instant  death.  Nothing  could 
break  his  spirit.  To  his  last  breath  he  was  the  embodi- 
ment of  youth;  he  died  doing  the  work  that  youth 
only  may  undertake.  To  his  last  breath  he  was  a 
patriot;  he  died  in  the  uniform  of  a  Major.  The  Fates 
were  kind  and  granted  him  the  death  that  heroic  men 
pray  for  when  they  go  into  battle. 


416  Other  Addresses 

He  meant  and  still  means  something  personal  to 
every  member  of  this  Chamber.  He  was  for  us  the 
militant  embodiment  of  our  civic  ideals,  the  splendid 
expression  of  our  civic  pride.  We  followed  him  gladly 
in  Hfe.  The  Chamber  was  honored  by  a  place  in  the 
great  procession  of  soldiers,  sailors  and  citizens  which 
followed  his  remains  to  their  last  resting  place. 

Death  has  bereft  us  and  the  Nation,  but  not  even 
death  can  take  from  us  the  inspiration  that  will  always 
quicken  and  inspire  the  citizens  of  New  York  when 
they  recall  this  gentle,  fearless,  knightly  man. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Committee  is  hereby  directed 
to  make  this  Minute  the  subject  of  a  Special  Report 
to  the  Chamber  at  its  next  regular  meeting;  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Chamber  is  directed  to  spread  the  Minute 
on  the  records  of  the  Committee  and  to  send  a  copy, 
duly  engrossed  and  attested,  to  Mrs.  Mitchel. 


THE  JAPAN  SOCIETY 


INTRODUCTIONS— DECEMBER  11    1917 


^F  THE  citizens  of  New  York  here  present 
had  been  born  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  by 
some  physical  and  spiritual  miracle  had 
lived  through  all  the  intervening  centuries 
and  been  a  part  of  them,  and  by  some  other 
miracle  found  themselves  now  in  their  sixties,  just  in 
the  meridian  of  life,  they  could  perhaps  claim  to  have 
lived  as  long,  to  have  seen  as  much,  to  be  as  young,  and 
to  be  as  wise  as  our  two  chief  guests  of  honor  Ambas- 
sador Sato  and  Baron  Megata. 

Both  of  these  distinguished  representatives  of  the 
Japanese  Empire  were  born  in  feudal  times.  Their 
lives  have  spanned  all  that  lies  between  medieval  con- 
ditions and  the  most  modern  and  up-to-date  program. 
Neither  of  them  can  have  any  personal  memory  of  the 
arrival  of  Commodore  Perry  and  the  excitement  that 
prevailed  the  day  his  ship  sailed  into  Yedo  Bay.  But 
both  must  have  very  vivid  recollections  of  the  end  of 
the  Shogunate  and  of  the  restoration  which  made  the 
Mikado  the  head  of  the  Japanese  Empire  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  theory.  They  were  both  in  the  vigor  of  young 
manhood  in  the  troublous  days  of  the  seventies,  and 
they  witnessed  the  violent  changes  of  the  eighties  when 
Japan  with  a  rush  adopted  Western  ideas.  Western 
dress.  Western  customs,  and  indeed  any  thing  and 

417 


418  Other  Addresses 

everything  Western.  They  took  part  in  all  the  mar- 
velous changes  by  which  Japan  quickly  emerged  from 
the  life  of  hermit  into  the  activities,  the  responsibilities 
and  publicities  of  a  great  modern  nation. 

They  were,  as  I  understand  it,  friends  and  associates 
of  Prince  Ito — whose  son  is  a  member  of  this  Com- 
mission and  one  of  our  guests — who  so  largely  drafted 
the  Constitution  proclaimed  by  the  Mikado  in  1889, 
whose  writings  afterwards  did  so  much  to  interpret 
it.  They  have  in  short  been  potent  influences  in  that 
unprecedented  evolution  which  has  changed  Japan 
almost  within  a  generation  from  a  narrow  seclusiveness, 
which  feared  and  hated  all  foreigners,  into  a  broad- 
visioned,  efficient,  generous  and  humane  nation. 

Facts  can  be  recited  ver^^  quickly,  but  the  miracle 
remains  unexplained.  How  did  they  do  it?  We  are 
fond  of  referring  to  the  ''unchanging  East".  We  think 
of  the  Orient  as  the  land  where  eternity  dwells,  where 
nothing  changes.  But  in  Japan  an  evolution  has  taken 
place  within  thirty  years  that  makes  an  Anglo-Saxon 
dizzy.  It  goes  without  saying  that  under  our  system, 
controlled  by  our  sources  of  authority,  nothing  like 
this  could  peacefully  happen.  If  anything  approaching 
it  happened,  it  would  be  the  result  of  revolution.  We 
adopted  our  Constitution  in  1789.  Beyond  the  twelve 
amendments  which  followed  speedily  afterwards  and 
were  mostly  agreed  on  in  advance,  we  did  not,  except 
through  the  amendments  adopted  in  the  Civil  War, 
change  the  text  of  the  Constitution  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years. 

Again  the  question  arises.  How  did  Japan  do  all 
this?  I  suppose  none  of  us  has  a  very  clear  knowledge 
of  that.    But  certain  broad  facts  are  obvious.    Japan 


The  Japan  Society  419 

must  have  had  wise  and  far-sighted  leaders  who 
reaUzed  that  whether  Japan  Uked  it  or  not,  the  period 
of  her  isolation  was  past;  who  saw  not  only  that  her 
hermit-life  must  be  given  up  but  that  if  she  was  to  be 
worthy  of  her  genius,  Japan  must  affirmatively  take  her 
place  as  a  rival  and  a  competitor  of  those  who  were 
making  the  modern  world.  In  addition  to  that  it  is 
clear  that  she  must  have  had  a  people  who  were  tract- 
able and  loyal,  who  profoundly  believed  in  their 
leaders,  who  were  willing  to  follow  them  in  almost 
anything  they  did  and  adopt  almost  any  program  they 
laid  down.  When  however  we  consider  the  antiquity 
of  Japan,  the  deep-seated  fear  the  people  had  of  for- 
eigners, their  devotion  to  the  theory,  not  uncommon 
amongst  all  races,  that  they  were  the  "chosen  people", 
and  then  when  we  consider  the  extent  and  violence  of 
the  change,  it  must  have  been  true  at  times  that  faith 
in  their  leaders  was  strained  to  the  limit.  Could  any 
Occidental  people  have  been  changed  from  their 
condition  in  the  feudal  ages  to  their  present  condition 
in  a  generation?  Certainly  not.  It  is  not  thinkable. 
It  would  be  eas}^  to  point  out  a  hundred  reasons  why 
that  could  not  happen,  I  don't  mean  by  that  to  say 
that  it  couldn't  happen  because  it  didn't  happen,  but 
it  just  couldn't  have  happened.  In  Japan  it  did  happen, 
and  our  chief  guests  saw  it  all. 

I  sometimes  wonder  how  much  of  the  illusion  with 
which  Japan  viewed  the  Western  world  in  1853,  when 
the  black  hulk  of  Commodore  Perry's  steamer  and  its 
funnel  belching  black  smoke  terrified  the  Japanese 
people,  has  been  lost. 

It  would  be  a  reflection  on  Japan  to  say  that  she  did 
not  abandon  her  old  ways  and  adopt  Western  ways 


420  Other  Addresses 

because  she  believed  they  were  better  than  her  own. 
Of  course  that  was  her  motive.  But  facing  present  day 
reaUties  Japan  must  now  reahze  either  that  she  under- 
estimated herself  or  that  she  overestimated  us, — 
perhaps  a  little  of  both. 

In  the  intervening  period  she  has  tried  her  war 
strength  with  at  least  one  great  Occidental,  or  at  least 
semi-Occidental  Power.  She  has  pitted  the  quality 
of  her  intellectual  powers  against  the  men  of  the  West 
in  many  of  our  Universities  and  Colleges,  and  in  many 
of  the  Universities  of  Europe;  she  has  developed  a 
degree  of  generosity  and  humanity  toward  her  enemies 
in  battle  never  surpassed  by  any  Anglo-Saxon  and 
utterly  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  Teuton. 
She  knows  to-day  that  in  all  these  prime  essentials, 
physical,  mental  and  moral,  she  is  the  peer  of  any. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  the  Japan  Society  to  have  as 
its  guests  to-night  men  who  were  powerful  factors  in 
the  whole  of  this  transformation;  others  who  were  a 
creative  part  of  modern  Japan  only.  Our  guests  were 
not  spectators;  they  did  not  stand  by  and  wonder  at 
what  was  happening.  They  were  amongst  the  trans- 
formers of  old  Japan,  amongst  the  creators  of  new 
Japan. 

It  is  my  high  privilege  now  to  present  one  of  these 
two  chief  guests  of  honor,  a  graduate  of  De  Pauw 
University,  barely  in  his  sixties,  so  old  in  what  he  has 
seen,  so  young  in  what  he  has  done,  so  ancient  in  his 
traditions  and  in  his  inspirations,  so  modern  in  his 
spirit  and  in  his  point  of  view,  the  representative  in 
the  United  States  of  His  Imperial  Majesty,  the  Em- 
peror of  Japan,  His  Excellency, 

AMBASSADOR  SATO. 


The  Japan  Society  421 

The  second  of  these  wise  and  wonderful  men  into 
whose  Ufe  centuries  have  been  packed,  is  a  graduate 
of  Harvard  University,  and  may  justly  be  called  the 
financial  and  economic  creator  of  Korea.  His  work  in 
reforming  the  currency  system  of  Korea  was  notable; 
he  brought  order  out  of  chaos,  effective  administration 
and  a  system  of  responsible  credits  out  of  an  appalling 
condition  of  inefficiency  and  graft. 

In  some  respects  Baron  Megata  reminds  me  of 
Viscount  Ishii,  who  so  lately  visited  us  and  left  so 
pleasant  and  so  profound  an  impression  everywhere. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen — the  head  of  the  Japanese 
Financial  Commission,  one  of  the  creators  of  modern 
Japan, 

BARON  MEGATA. 


WE  ARE,  TOO,  IN  THAT  OTHER  SUNLIGHT 

WHICH  FLOODS  OUR  SOULS 

AND   TEACHES  US  TO 

LAUGH  AT  TIME 


ON  TAKING  THE  CHAIR  AS  PRESIDENT 
OF  THE  SENIORS'  GOLF  ASSOCIATION 


DELMONICO'S,  NEW  YORK.  JANUARY  29    1917 


ELLOW  PHILOSOPHERS:  When  the 
Committee  in  charge  of  America's  classic 
golfing  event,  held  annually  at  Apawamis, 
looked  at  the  entries  in  recent  years  and 
noticed  the  swelling  totals  they  must  have 
been  reminded  of  Lincoln's  remark  about  plain  people. 
God  must  love  the  seniors  because  he  made  so  many 
of  them. 

To  be  a  senior  is  not  to  be  old;  it  is  merely  to  have 
been  longer  in  service  than  someone  else.  To  be  a 
member  of  the  Senior  Class  in  college — apart  from  the 
dignities  and  pri\dleges  that  go  with  it — is  merely 
evidence  that  a  man  is  wiser  and  sounder  than  the 
unripe  and  uneducated  bunch  that  make  up  the  lower 
classes. 

In  the  great  college  to  which  we  belong  this  is  the 
Senior  Class.  It's  a  very  unusual  university — this 
institution  of  ours.  There  are  seldom  any  "dead  ones" 
in  it;  they  matriculate  with  difficulty. 

Most  people  are  apt  to  think  of  a  certain  age — which 
I  will  not  mention  —  as  the  only  qualification  for 
membership  in  this  body.  That's  a  very  great  error. 
Fools  and  liars  and  men  with  yellow  streaks  in  them 

425 


426  Other  Addresses 

achieve  the  requisite  years,  but  by  a  process  of  self- 
ehmination  they  never  enter  here,  or  if  by  chance  they 
do,  their  stay  is  short,  they  are  plucked  early.  Above 
the  question  of  a  certain  age  stand  these  tests — 

Is  the  candidate  a  gentleman? 

Does  he  love  the  smell  of  the  soil? 

Has  he  satisfactorily  passed  the  severe  tests  apphed 
in  the  lower  forms? 

Is  he  a  good  fellow? 

Is  his  mind  young? 

Does  the  song  of  the  lark  make  his  blood  tingle? 

Does  he  stop  playing,  lean  on  his  putter  and  smile 
if  a  bob-o-hnk  happens  to  be  swaying  and  singing 
in  the  reeds  hard  by? 

Does  he  instinctively  know  just  what  and  where  the 
"Fair  way"  is? 

Has  he  a  sound  philosophy? 

Above  everything  else  does  he  know  that  time  is  a 
liar? 

Il  he  can  pass  these  tests  he  may  be  advanced  to  the 
dignity  of  membership  in  this  class  and  not  otherwise. 

It  is  my  great  honor  to-night  to  have  been  elected 
first  President  of  the  first  properly  constituted  Senior 
Class  in  this  great  University.  I  do  not  need  to  remind 
most  of  you  what  a  signal  honor  it  is  and  has  always 
been  to  be  President  of  the  Senior  Class.  But  my  dis- 
tinction is  unique.  This  is  the  first  group  of  tliis  sort 
of  men  evolved  in  a  billion  or  two  of  years.  It  took 
golfers,  as  such,  some  four  hundred  years  to  evolve  you, 
and  it  took  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Dark  Ages  and  the 
Renaissance  to  evolve  the  first  golfer.  Not  until  these 
days  in  which  we  Uve  have  men  developed  the  keenness 
of  soul  that,  challenged  by  the  metaphysics  of  golf. 


President  of  the  Seniors'  Golf  Association      427 

has  made  instant  counter-challenge,  and  yearly  now 
sends  in  deep  discussion  wandering  over  the  hills  and 
valleys  thousands  of  eager  faced  men,  whose  dis- 
quisitions make  Socrates  seem  but  a  piker. 

The  first  grave-digger  in  Hamlet  says  that  the  only 
"ancient  gentlemen"  left  are  "gardeners,  ditchers  and 
grave-makers;  they  hold  up  Adam's  profession".  In 
the  construction  of  a  modern  golf  course  the  ditcher 
finds  occupation,  the  grave-maker  finds  a  consolation 
that  is  bottomless,  the  gardener  completes  and  beau- 
tifies all.  Together  they  make  the  Paradise  through 
which  wisdom  and  experience  wander.  Old  Omar  was 
there  before  us  and  he  would  be  ehgible  to  membership 
if  he  had  not  so  long  ago  become  our  Prophet.  Listen 
to  him — with  no  change  in  the  thought — 

Here  with  a  little  Bread  beneath  the  Bough, 
A  high-ball  and  a  book  of  verse — and  Thou 
Beside  me  singing  in  the  Wilderness — 
Oh,  Wilderness  were  Paradise  enow! 

In  the  fines  of  the  old  Tentmaker  I  find  this  toast  to 
you — fellow  lovers  of  the  open,  fellow  golfers,  fellow 
philosophers,  fellow  seniors : 

Ah,  my  Beloved,  play  the  game  that  clears 
To-day  of  Past  Regrets  and  Future  Fears; 
TO-MORROW!— Why  To-morrow  I  may  be 
Myself  with  Yesterday's  sev'n  thousand  years. 


FALSTAFF'S  DEFENSE  OF  AGE 


SENIORS'  GOLF  ASSOCIATION  DINNER, 
APAWAMIS,  SEPTEMBER  19,  1917 


ENIORS:  I  speak  not  Spanish  but  plain 
United  States  when  I  thus  address  you. 
Seniors!  At  a  time  when  titles  are  all 
about  I  merely  recognize  the  rank  con- 
ferred on  you,  not  by  age,  but  by  your 
own  philosophy  and  straight  thinking, — I  said  "think- 
ing", not  driving. 

You  may  verj'  properly  insist  on  this  title  which 
discriminates,  which  affirms,  which  denies.  You  con- 
fess you  are  not  young;  j'ou  deny  that  you  are  old. 
I  can  think  of  no  more  perfect  description  of  the 
present  condition  and  appearance  of  this  band  of  sports 
than  one  contained  in  these  words  of  the  Duke  in 
"Measure  for  Measure": 

"Thou  hast  nor  youth  nor  age, 
But,  as  it  were,  an  after  dinner  sleep, 
Dreaming  on  both." 

In  such  few  indications  of  decay  as  are  observable 
at  this  distance  Falstaff,  that  beloved  old  blatherskite, 
fixed  your  age  when  he  confessed  his  own  in  the  First 
Part  of  Henry  VI,  in  these  words : 

As  I  think,  his  age  some  fifty,  or, 
by're  lady  inclining  to  three  score." 

42S 


Falstaff's  Defense  of  Age  429 

Falstaff  had  a  dislike  for  definiteness  in  the  matter  of 
age  which  makes  him  dehghtful.  But  it  was  in  his 
defiance  of  time  that  Falstaff  most  perfectlj^  fore- 
shadowed your  condition.  If  in  your  callow  days  you 
committed  any  faults,  which  God  forbid,  you  ob- 
viously repent  of  them  to-night  as  Falstaff  did — 

"Not  in  ashes  and  sackcloth 
but  in  new  silk  and  old  sack." 

In  this  exalted  condition,  physically,  mentally  and 
spiritually,  we  celebrate  the  first  meet  of  the  Seniors' 
Golf  Association  at  hospitable  Apawamis. 

I  shall  in  a  moment  through  the  words  of  others 
describe  and  defend  this  company  collectively. 

Individually  I  could — indeed  in  my  mind  I  do — se- 
lect individuals  and  insist  that  Oliver  in  "As  You  Like 
If  describes  them  with  cruel  realism  when  he  says: 

"     *     *     an  oak  whose  boughs  were  mossed  with  age, 
And  high  top  bald." 

Collectively  the  Chief  Justice  in  the  Second  Part  of 
Henrj^  IV  describes  you  better  than  any  other  in  all 
literature  and  Falstaff  makes  valiant  defense.  The 
indictment  and  the  defense  run  thus: 

Chief  Justice — 

"Do  you  set  down  your  name  on  the  scroll  of  j-outh,  that  are 
written  down  old  with  all  the  characters  of  age?  Have  you  not 
a  moist  eye?  a  dry  hand?  a  yellow  cheek?  a  white  beard?  a  de- 
creasing leg?  an  increasing  belly?  Is  not  your  voice  broken?  your 
wind  short?  your  chin  double?  your  wit  single?  and  every  part 
about  you  blasted  with  antiquity?" 

To  which  Falstaff  in  his  own  and  our  defense  replies — 

"My  lord,  I  was  born  about  three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon, 
with  a  white  head,  and  a  something  round  belly.  For  my  voice, — 
I  have  lost  it  with  hollaing,  and  singing  of  anthems.     To  prove 

29 


430  Other  Addresses 

my  youth  further,  I  will  not:  the  truth  is,  I  am  only  old  in  judg- 
ment and  understanding;  and  he  that  will  caper  with  me  for  a 
thousand  marks,  let  him  lend  me  the  money,  and  have  at  him." 

In  creating  this  organization  we  have  probably 
builded  a  monument  and  in  so  doing  we  are  only 
observing  the  reflections  of  Benedick  in  ''Much  Ado" — 

"If  a  man  do  not  erect  in  this  age  his  own  tomb  ere  he  dies,  he 
shall  live  no  longer  in  monuments  than  the  bell  rings  and  the 
widow  weeps." 

There  is  something  uncannily  suggestive  too  in  what 
the  melancholy  Jacques  calls  the  sixth  age,  but  we 
deny  that  any  of  us  are  candidates  for  "the  lean  and 
slippered  pantaloon".  Knickerbockers  had  then  been 
invented  and  therefore  I  wonder  that  gloomy  philoso- 
pher did  not  more  cruelly  inveigh  against  the  shrunk 
shank. 

We  admit  that  youth  has  certain  seeming  advan- 
tages, but  young  men  after  all  belong  to  what  we  may 
properly  call  the  dependent  class.  Some  of  them  may 
insolently  offer  us  three  bisques  and  make  us  wish  we 
had  taken  four,  but  all  such  performers  miss  the  ecstasy 
we  feel  in  scoring  an  eighty,  because  in  doing  that  we 
have  triumphed  over  time.  But  that  is  only  a  sug- 
gestion of  our  real  triumph. 

What  brings  us  together? 

We  come  from  many  States  from  many  vocations. 
As  the  world  wags  we  have  various  faiths  and  as  many 
points  of  view  as  five  hundred  men  who  have  played 
the  game  hard  well  can  have. 

We  have  been  young,  as  youth  goes.  We  have  paid 
that  debt  by  raising  up  sons  and  daughters  to  take  our 
places.  We  have  played  our  part  in  the  fierce  con- 
tests of  middle  life, — and,  I  think,  played  it  honorably. 


Falstaff's  Defense  of  Age  431 

Now  we  come  together  as  men  like  us  have  never 
before  assembled.  Why?  Because  we  have  discov- 
ered as  alas!  thousands  of  others  have  not,  how  to  meet 
advancing  age  merrily.  By  this  game  of  golf  and  this 
fellowship  we  vanquish  time  even  as  the  boy  scores  a 
79.  Neither  of  us  knows  just  how  we  do  it,  but  we 
do  it. 

We  have  learned  what  King  Henry  meant  when  in 
wooing  Katherine  he  said: 

"But  in  faith  Kate,  the  elder  I  wax,  the  better  I  shall  appear,  my 
comfort  is  that  old  age,  that  ill-layer  up  of  beauty,  can  do  no  more 
spoil  upon  my  face." 

We  are  in  truth  no  group  of  fools  drawing  dials  from 
our  pokes  or  watches  from  our  pockets,  nor  do  we  look 
at  these  instruments  for  recording  time  with  lack- 
lustre eyes,  as  Jacques's  fool  did,  nor  do  we  say  with 
him: 

"It  is  ten  o'clock: 
Thus  we  may  see     *     *     *    how  the  world  wags; 
'Tis  but  one  hour  ago  since  it  was  nine, 
And  after  an  hour  more  'twill  be  eleven; 
And  so  from  hour  to  hour  we  ripe  and  ripe, 
And  then  from  hour  to  hour  we  rot  and  rot, 
And  thereby  hangs  a  tale." 

By  this  glorious  game  and  this  gracious  fellowship 
'tis  true  we  ripe  and  ripe;  but  we  are  "too  much  i'  the 
sun"  to  rot — the  sun  that  browns  our  bodies  and 
clears  our  brains.  We  are,  too,  in  that  other  sunlight 
that  floods  our  souls  and  teaches  us  to  laugh  at  time, 
the  fearless  sunlight  of  philosophy  which  makes  our 
western  sky  more  glorious  than  any  sky  of  youth. 


AMERICAN  MUSEUM  OF  GOLFING 
ANTIQUITIES 


DINNER  OF  THE  SENIORS'  GOLF  ASSOCIATION, 
APAWAMIS,  SEPTEMBER  12,  1918 


HAVE  on  one  or  two  occasions  made  at- 
tempts to  convince  this  venerable  Bunch 
that  it  was  anticipated  and  appreciated  by 
the  Bard  of  Avon,  and  to-night  I  propose 
to  show  you  how,  in  a  cunningly  concealed 
cipher,  more  subtle  than  any  discovered  by  the  Baco- 
nians, Shakespeare  discussed  golf,  had  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  all  its  shots,  its  inspiration  and  its  despairs. 
There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  discussion  about  the 
antiquity  of  Golf.  The  man  who  had  the  bug  so 
badly  that  it  drove  him  in  his  ethnic  investigations 
across  the  North  Sea  into  the  dunes  of  Holland, 
thought  he  had  said  the  last  word.  That  man  wasn't 
familiar  with  his  Shakespeare.  William  gives  Golf  an 
antiquity  of  at  least  two  thousand  j-ears.  He  clearly 
and  definitely  shows  that  Julius  Caesar  was  a  bum 
putter  and  he  paints  a  familiar  picture  of  the  crowd  of 
friends  gathered  around  the  home  green  when  the 
match  is  level  and  the  sympathy  they  always  show 
when  a  man  putts  past  a  hole  three  or  four  times. 

Shakespeare  expresses  this  in  Casca's  description  of 
what  happened  one  day  at  the  Lupercal  when  Caesar  re- 
fused the  crown:  "  *  *  *  he  put  it  by  thrice  every  time 

432 


American  Museum  of  Golfing  Antiquities       433 

gentler  than  other :  and  at  each  putting-by  mine  honest 
neighbor  shouted."  Caesar  ha\dng  missed  it  thrice, 
Casca's  dagger  found  the  hole. 

In  the  same  play,  Brutus,  the  original  Bolshevist, 
says:  '^Good  words  are  better  than  bad  strokes." 
And  Antonj^  reminds  Brutus  of  ''the  hole  he  made  in 
Caesar's  heart". 

In  "All's  Well"  Shakespeare  draws  the  picture  of  a 
familiar  friend,  the  man  who  haggles  on  the  first  tee 
about  how  the  match  shall  be  made  up:  the  man  who 
in  the  distant  past  got  a  handicap  of  eighteen  and  has 
never  played  in  a  Club  Tournament  since  for  fear 
that  he  might  win  something  and  get  his  handicap 
lowered.  Shakespeare  had  his  measure  when  he  said 
"Half  won,  is  match  well  made". 

The  gentle  Bard  had  a  keen  appreciation  too  of  the 
foolish  competitor  to  whom  you  have  conceded  bisques, 
who  is  plajdng  fairly  well  and  thinks  as  he  is  only  one 
down  that  he  will  keep  two  or  three  bisques  for  the 
last  hole,  and  then  loses  his  ball  on  the  last  tee  shot. 
Sebastian  describes  him  in  "The  Tempest",  when  he 
says:  "I  think  he  will  carrj^  this  Island  home  in  his 
pocket." 

Shakespeare  knew  the  difference  in  golf  courses.  It 
wasn't  Apawamis,  but  I  think  I  know  what  course  he 
had  in  mind  when  he  makes  Quintus  in  his  "Titus 
Andronicus"  after  he  has  led  Martins  into  the  pit,  say: 
"What  subtle  hole  is  this  whose  mouth  is  covered  with 
rude-growing  briers?" 

It  is  perfectly  clear,  although  the  Rules  of  Golf 
Committee  of  St.  Andrews  have  evolved  no  rules  gov- 
erning it,  that  our  Bard  knew  all  about  the  Four-Ball- 
Match.     You  have  seen  the  expression  on  the  face  of 


434  Other  Addresses 

your  partner  when  one  of  the  opposing  players  pitched 
his  ball  stone  dead  from  a  hundred  yards  away.  In 
"The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona"  Sylvia  says  to  Pro- 
teus: "By  thy  approach  thou  makest  me  most  un- 
happy." 

And  you  know  the  glow  of  satisfaction  that  spreads 
over  your  frame  when  in  a  Four-Ball-]\Iatch  your 
partner  does  the  same  thing.  All  this  was  expressed 
in  "As  You  Like  It",  by  the  First  Lord  who  when 
ordered  to  find  the  melancholy  Jacques  replies:  "He 
saves  my  labor  by  his  own  approach."  The  Fool  in 
"Timon"  was  no  fool  in  Golf  matters  when  he  accu- 
rately describes  the  man  who  plays  to  the  green  and 
then  goes  down  in  one.  He  tells  us  of  the  men  who 
"approach  sadly  and  go  away  merry". 

The  Prince  of  Monaco  in  the  Casket  Scene  of  "The 
Merchant  of  Venice"  typifies  the  bold  plaj'-er  and  ex- 
presses his  philosophy  when  he  says:  "Men  that 
hazard  all,  do  it  in  hope  of  fair  advantages." 

Hotspur's  outburst  in  "Henry  IV"  when  the  King 
charges  Mortimer  with  treason,  could  as  well  be  the 
language  of  a  man  who  has  been  hit  on  the  bean  by  a 
careless  player:  "I  will  ease  my  heart  albeit  I  make  a 
hazard  of  my  head." 

Having  fairly  established  the  antiquity  of  Golf  and 
noticed  its  place  in  literature,  it  becomes  my  duty  to 
report  to  this  museum  what  progress  we  have  made  in 
the  past  year,  in  adding  to  our  rare  specimens. 

You  know  how  we  classify  ourselves — 55  to  59  inclu- 
sive, 60  to  64  inclusive,  65  to  69  inclusive,  and  70  over 
the  top. 

During  the  year  we  have  dug  up  two  rare  specimens : 
one  from  the  New  Haven  shales  which  are  placed  in 


American  Museum  of  Golfing  Antiquities       435 

the  upper  Jurassic  or  Juristic.  We  call  this  specimen 
''Big  Bill"  Taft.  The  other  from  auriferous  deposits 
of  lower  Manhattan.  We  call  this  specimen  "Charlie" 
Hughes. 

The  first  is  a  very  rare  and  valuable  specimen.  He 
is  really  "a"  if  not  "the"  missing  link  in  golf.  The 
persistence  with  which  we  take  our  eye  off  the  ball 
even  after  years  of  play  has  made  it  clear  to  many  of 
us  that  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  keeping  the 
eye  glued  to  the  ball  wasn't  necessary.  Until  this 
specimen  was  placed  in  the  museum  we  were  not  quite 
sure.  Now  we  are.  He  has  shown  us  that  looking  at 
the  ball  is  entirely  unnecessary,  because  he  hits  it 
when  it  is  entirely  below  the  line  of  his  horizon. 

The  second  specimen  out-Caesars  Caesar.  I  have 
told  you  that  Julius  was  a  bum  putter,  but  "Charlie" 
is  bummer.  Competing  in  the  1916  Presidential  sweep- 
stakes he  played  his  opponent  level  to  the  eighteenth 
green,  putted  past  the  hole  not  three  times  but  for  a 
week  and  never  got  down  at  all. 

We  are,  therefore,  progressing  in  the  number  and 
rarity  of  our  specimens.  The  museum  is  already 
national  and  threatens  to  become  international  in  its 
activities.  We  now  venture  to  predict  that  it  will  in 
time  overcome  the  natural  effervescence  of  the  early 
sixties  and  achieve  the  robust  youth  that  lies  in  the 
seventies  and  beyond. 


IN  PRAISE  OF  AGE 


IN  CELEBRATIOX  OF  THE  77th  BIRTHDAY  (MARCH  27,  1919) 

OF  HORACE  L.  HOTCHKISS 

HONORARY  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  SENIORS'  GOLF  ASSOCIATION 

DELMONICO'S,  NEW  YORK,  APRIL,   1919 


Our  Honorary  and  Greatly  Honored  President,  Canadian 
Guests,  and  Plain  Members — 

Cicero  had  in  mind  the  type  of  which  our  guest  is  a 
shining  example,  when  he  penned  his  noble  essay  on 
old  age,  and  especially  when  he  wrote  the  sentiment* 
printed  on  the  evening's  program.    Further  on  Cicero 

says : 

"But  whatever  the  extent  of  our  present  duration 
may  prove,  a  wise  and  good  man  ought  to  be  con- 
tented with  the  allotted  measure,  remembering  that 
it  is  in  life  as  on  the  stage,  where  it  is  not  necessary 
in  order  to  be  approved,  that  the  actor's  part 
should  continue  to  the  conclusion  of  the  drama; 
it  is  sufficient,  in  whatever  scene  he  shall  make  his 
final  exit,  that  he  support  the  character  assigned 
to  him  w4th  deserved  applause.  The  truth  is  a 
small  portion  of  time  is  abundantly  adequate  to 
the  purposes  of  honor  and  virtue.  But  should 
our  years  continue  to  be  multiplied  a  wise  man  will 
no  more  lament  his  entrance  into  old  age  than  the 
husbandman  regrets,  w^hen  the  bloom  and  fra- 
grance of  spring  is  passed  away,  that  summer  or 
autumn  is  arrived." 

It  has  long  been  the  custom  of  men  to  honor  those 
who  have  borne  themselves  heroically  in  war.    Honors 

*  "He  alone  shall  taste  this  sweet  fruit  of  revered  age,  whose  former  years  have 
been  distinguished  by  an  uniform  series  of  laudable  and  meritorious  actions." 

436 


In  Praise  of  Age  437 

take  a  great  variety  of  forms.  The  survivors  of 
a  great  war  are  usually  given  a  distinctive  medal; 
sometimes  Congress  or  Parliament  votes  a  special 
medal.  Titles  are  invented  to  fit  the  occasion  and  the 
service.  Sometimes  a  victorious  General  or  Admiral 
is  given  public  receptions  and  banquets. 

The  Romans  gave  a  triumph  to  the  Generals  who 
had  added  territory  to  the  Empire.  When  the  Senate 
had  voted  a  triumph  to  a  General  he  entered  the  city 
through  the  Portal  of  Triumph  and  rode  over  the  via 
sacra  to  the  Capitol.  He  was  dressed  in  gold  and 
purple,  crowned  with  laurel  and  carried  a  laurel  branch 
in  his  right  hand.  His  troops  and  the  people  followed 
him  shouting 

''  10  TRIUMPHS  !     10  TRIUMPHS  ! " 

The  ceremonies  by  which  we  honor  our  heroes  resemble 
these  even  in  form;  in  spirit  and  purpose  the  Roman 
triumph  still  survives. 

Of  the  famous  Canadian  Regiment  known  as  the 
"Princess  Pats"  onlj'-  a  handful  survive.  Of  our  69th, 
of  the  original  Seventh,  only  a  handful  remain.  In  a 
crowded  hour  death  claimed  and  took  from  them  a  toll 
that  otherwise  would  have  been  as  certainly  but  almost 
imperceptibly  taken  by  the  inexorable  demands  of  the 
years. 

Life  is  a  battle.  Its  contests  are  less  crowded,  ap- 
parently less  cruel,  seemingly  less  deadly  than  were  the 
Somme  and  Verdun  and  the  Argonne.  But  in  reality 
life's  battles  are  as  deadly  as  those  of  any  war  that  has 
been  or  shall  be. 

Those  who  survive  in  the  longer  and  less  crowded 
battles  of  every-day  life  are  almost  invariably  they  who 


438  Other  Addi-esses 

were  wise  and  just  and  fearless  of  soul.  ]\Ien  who 
reach  nearly  four  score  years  are  truly  veterans 
of  a  long  fight  in  which  they  have  been  constantly 
under  fire. 

The  attack  begins  with  the  cry  of  fear  that  ushers 
a  new  life  into  the  world,  and  every  hfe  begins  with  a  crj- 
of  fear.  The  attack  never  ceases;  it  is  deadhest  when 
life  is  most  intense — in  its  middle  period.  It  measurably 
diminishes  when  a  handful  out  of  every  thousand 
emerges  into  the  serene  airs  of  golden  days.  That  hand- 
ful, those  sur\'ivors  are  as  truly  veterans,  as  certainh' 
heroes,  as  the  defenders  of  Thermopylae  or  the  victors 
of  \>rdun.  But  alas,  the  world  does  not  always  so 
regard  them.  The  sur\'ivors  of  the  battles  of  life  are 
seldom  cheered  on  that  account,  and  it  is  rather  the 
waj'  of  the  world  to  hustle  them  to  one  side. 

But  now  and  again  comes  a  veteran  so  wise,  so 
gentle,  so  young  in  his  mind  and  soul,  that  in  his  honor 
men  pause  in  the  conflict  that  never  ceases,  in  which 
every  man  in  a  very  real  sense  has  his  back  to  the  wall. 

Therefore  it  is  that  we  have  paused  to-night. 

We  are  gathered  to  honor  a  man  who  is  a  veteran  be- 
cause he  has  fought  a  clean,  long  fight,  a  hero 
because  he  has  fought  through  the  Argonne  Forest  of 
the  October  of  life  and  rests  a  victor  in  its  November. 

We  have  expressed  to  him  appreciation  before,  but 
not  this  kind  of  appreciation.  We  have  loved  him 
because  of  his  lovable  qualities,  and  we  have  told  him 
that.  We  have  been  grateful  because  he  happily 
founded  our  organization,  and  we  have  told  him  of  our 
gratitude.  To-night  we  have  aroused  in  ourselves  a 
bit  of  the  mysticism  of  the  East,  a  sentiment  that  vener- 
ates age  and  makes  Gods  of  worthy  ancestors.     On  all 


In  Praise  of  Age  439 

occasions  we  hail  our  guest  as  Founder  and  Friend,  but 
to-night  we  greet  him  as  the  Hero  who  has  survived 
at  least  seventy-seven  battles,  who  bears  the  scars  of 
clean  and  honorable  combat,  who  is  now  emerging 
into  the  serene  airs  of  that  Beatitude  which  is  re- 
served for  the  pure  in  heart,  for  the  plain  men  who 
have  fought  through  every  battle  of  life  and  have  kept 
the  faith. 

We  fill  our  glasses  but  we  do  not  say  "long  life  to 
you,"  because  you  have  had  that  already,  and  Cicero 
elsewhere  in  his  famous  essay  saj^s  that  no  portion  of 
time  can  be  justly  deemed  long  that  will  necessarily 
have  an  end.  We  do  not  say  "may  you  prosper" — 
you  have  prospered.  We  do  not  say  "vasiy  you  have 
friends" — you  have  troops  of  friends.  We  drink  no 
usual  toast  because  you  have  achieved  all  that  standard 
toasts  hope  for.  We  drink  to  your  triumph.  This  is 
your  triumph. 

It  is  yours  because  in  compliance  with  the  Roman 
law  you  have  added  territory  to  the  empire  of  ripened 
years,  to  the  things  that  make  the  November  of  life 
even  more  beautiful  than  its  June;  you  have  brought 
many  captives  home  to  Apawamis.  You  have  come 
here,  as  the  Roman  Generals  did,  through  the  Portal 
of  Triumph,  which,  in  j^our  case,  swung  open  because 
you  could  give  the  magic  pass-word — seventy-seven. 
The  laurel  is  on  your  brow;  you  are  clad  in  the  gold 
and  purple  of  our  reverence  and  affection.  We  follow 
you  advancing  over  the  via  sacra  that  leads  from  the 
first  to  the  nineteenth  hole.  Having  reached  the  nine- 
teenth hole  we  drink,  and  as  we  drink  we  shout  as  the 
Romans  did  when  following  a  hero  to  the  Capitol: 
"10  TRIUMPHE!     10  TRIUMPHE!" 


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